Medicine
by xpriordeen
Summary: Katniss and Peeta struggle to find themselves and to find each other when they return to District 12. Slightly out of character and very dark. Inspired by Daughter's song Medicine. I recommend you listen to it while you read.
1. Chapter 1

It was too soon for him to be back in Twelve. But, Dr. Aurelius was a busy man with paying customers by the end of the war, and Peeta Mellark was no longer a priority to anyone, so he was shipped home. It wasn't a home, not really. To him, nothing was. It was a house, but it suited him well, he thought. Empty, dark, abandoned. Just like him. It was, however, missing broken. Soon, he fixed that. The first time he caught sight of her through his window, the venom filled his mind so fast he hardly knew what hit him. He went mutt, destroying everything breakable in his kitchen, leaving a glass coating on the floor. He walked right over it, then trailed bloody footprints into his living room. He didn't care. He was raging. She was right there, living across from him, and he didn't know how to feel. He noticed her watching him from that very same window. He tore into his couch cushions, smashed the wooden legs of his chairs, punched a couple holes in the dry wall. He wasn't satisfied. He wanted, he _needed_, to destroy _everything_. He made his way over to the brick wall surrounding the fire place. He clawed at it until his fingers bled like his feet. He punched it until his hands were completely bruised. She was there. She was watching. She was doing this. The venom flared again, whispering falsities into his mind. He couldn't tell the difference. He was being tortured. She was there, watching, laughing, participating. She killed his family. She led him on, tricked him into loving her, never really loved him back. She was everything dark in the world. She was a Mockingjay, clad in black feathers, voice like a weapon. He hates her with every fiber of his being. He loves her so much it hurts. He slams his head into the bricks and collapses.

* * *

When he regains consciousness, Peeta knows he's in way over his head. He knows he's fucked up. He doesn't know how to fix it, how to fix himself. He has no help. His skull throbs and he feels dried blood on his forehead. Purple and green and yellow and red hands. Red feet, decorated with crystals. He moves step by step, slowly, the only way he knows how. Sit up. Breathe. Remove glass from feet. Breathe. He desperately wants to shower, to wash away the blood, to clean his house of what he's done, what he is. All he can do is pull himself up on the couch and fall asleep.

* * *

Upon waking, nothing has changed. His house is still a wreck. He is still alone. He is still Peeta, angry and hostile and dangerous and cynical. This time, he stands and makes it to his bedroom, where he showers. The blood runs down the drain, but he knows he will never wash his hands of it completely. Dressed in new clothes, he bandages his hands and feet sloppily. He doesn't really care, but he puts himself back together out of guilt. Guilt that he's alive while so many others are dead. So, he forces himself to live.


	2. Chapter 2

It was too late for her to be back in Twelve. But, her body couldn't stay in the Capitol with her mind, so she was shipped home in pieces. It wasn't a home, not really. To her, nothing was. Her sister is gone. Her mother is gone. Her father is gone. Gale is gone. Finnick is gone. Peeta is gone. It's just her. Her and the cat. She wants to be gone. She tries to leave. She tries to take her own life. She fails repeatedly. She owes it to these loved ones to survive. Surviving isn't living. She only eats occasionally, when Greasy Sae literally forces the food into her mouth, and she doesn't leave her bed or speak for weeks. When she finally makes it downstairs by some miracle of nature, she looks out the window and sees Peeta in his house across the street. But, it isn't really Peeta. She feels something. She doesn't want to. She turns around and heads back upstairs without a second thought. The warmth of her comforter greets her like an old friend and she willingly wraps herself in its embrace. It holds her when she needs to be held, which is why she does not move. She is not strong anymore. She is burned out. She needs to be held together. She hates herself for it. She hates herself for being so weak, for not being able to sleep, to eat, to hunt. She's a waste of good oxygen. She's a waste. She doesn't deserve to live. She thinks she could die if she just refuses to eat for a little longer. She can see every one of her ribs. She feels pride for the first time in a long time. But then, Sae is back in her room, forcing her to eat. She eats. She is so weak. She thinks of the bottle pills she's been refusing to take. It calls to her from her nightstand. She accepts the call, taking them all at once.


	3. Chapter 3

He walks downstairs, ignoring the pain in his feet all together. There's so much blood on the floor. His eyes flit back and forth, analyzing, scanning, surveying. For a second, his mind is black. He grabs at his head, screaming. Images flash. He can't make them out at first. Nothing but shiny colors and bolts of light. Then, blood. The blood on the floor in front of him. His blood. His blood on the concrete floor of the cell. On the hands of the white-coated men. On the hands of Katniss Everdeen. Another scream rips from his throat and he desperately grabs for the railing attached to his stair case. He fights. He tries to contain the venom in his veins with every breath he takes. He tries to push it back down. It explodes with sparks in his brain and brings him to his knees. He fights harder, but he's drowning in the venom. He tears the railing from the wall, but he's so tired of destroying. His whole body trembles as he collapses into a pathetic heap on the hardwood flood.

* * *

When he opens his eyes, the blood is still there, staring him in the face, but he grits his teeth and makes to clean it. The act of standing alone makes him see stars, and his head hurts like it always does after a flashback, like it does most every day, but he revels in the pain. He deserves it. He is weak. This is his punishment. He cannot fight off this monster, and he deserves to feels the effects of his failure. The monster is made of him, it is nothing but him, but he is more than the monster. Still, he blames himself for this Other Peeta, which so frequently controls the Real Peeta. Whoever that is. He doesn't know anymore. He remembers a day in Thirteen when Delly told him that she admired his sense of self, his dedication to his personal values. He cried, unable to remember any of these values which he supposedly held so dear. He sweeps glass alone. He wishes there was someone to hold the dustpan. He is glad he has to do this alone. He mops the floor alone. He wishes he had help. He is glad no one shows up. He cleans his living room, fixing everything except the hole in the wall and the tears in the sofa. He wants to light a fire. There is no firewood. By this point, he is so exhausted, all he can do is retire to the armchair next to the fire place. He collapses into it and reaches for the quilt draped over the back, but he's asleep before he can pull it over his body.


	4. Chapter 4

Unfortunately, she wakes up in bed. She wishes there were more pills in the bottle. She wishes they were stronger. She feels sick to her stomach, which upsets her, because it means that she is definitely not dead. She's being punished for failing again. She's sick of failing. She's just plain sick. She rolls over just in time to vomit on the hardwood floor, choking up nothing but stomach bile. Her mouth tastes like acid. She doesn't wash it out. Her door slams, and she jumps violently, hand flying to her back, which is void of arrows. She sighs, leaning back into the pillows, not caring who it is. She hopes it's Peeta. She prays to God it isn't. It's Haymitch Abernathy. He sees her. He sees the vomit. He sees the empty pill bottle on her bed.

"Shit, sweetheart."

She doesn't speak. She hasn't spoken in weeks. He doesn't say anything else, but he shakes his head as he sits in the lone chair across from her bed and pulls a flask from his breast pocket. Greasy Sae comes and cleans away the vomit and the pill bottle. She smooths Katniss' hair and holds a cold cloth to her head before leaving. Katniss doesn't deserve the affectionate gesture. She doesn't even deserve the company of Haymitch. She speaks.

"Leave."

"Why? You expecting more company? The boy, maybe?"

"LEAVE!"

The scream rips out of her throat. She didn't think she had it in her anymore, but Haymitch always did know how to make her mad.

"Good. You don't deserve him anyway."

"He's gone."

Haymitch pauses.

"Almost."

He leaves. She thinks.


	5. Chapter 5

Peeta cannot remember how to paint. The canvas in front of him is nothing but a mess of black strokes. He can't mix colors properly. He can't make a straight line. He throws the paintbrush at the wall in frustration. Painter. A word that used to define him. Not anymore. Painters create. He can never create, not ever again, not now that his head is filled with darkness instead of color. So, he does what he does best. He destroys. He coats every painting in the room in a thick layer of black, working with extra diligence on the ones of Katniss. When the doorbell rings, he becomes so paranoid that he drops the bucket of black paint and it splatters all over his clothes. For a second, something deep inside of him feels hopeful that when he opens the door, he'll see Katniss standing there. Something more prominent replaces that hope with pure fear. Haymitch Abernathy greets him when he pulls open the door.

"You don't look yourself, boy."

"I don't feel it."

"You're not the only one."

Peeta does not reply.

"I was just at her house."

He still remains silent.

"She tried to kill herself."

Peeta's eyes finally meet Haymitch's.

"Again."

Peeta speaks.

"Again?"

Haymitch nods.

Peeta wants to help. He wants to storm over to Katniss' house and rip into her with his words so she never tries something so stupid and destructive ever again. He knows that's what Haymitch wants him to do. He knows that's what Real Peeta would do. But, he's lost his words. And he even admires her. She, at least, has the courage to off herself because she knows that's what's best for everyone. They're both better off alone. They're both better off dead.

"Oh," is all he says.

Haymitch looks at him like he's just turned blue and sprouted wings.

"What's wrong with you, boy? She needs you."

"I can't help her anymore."

With one last look at Peeta, Haymitch raises the bottle he'd been clutching to his lips and turns around to leave, a sign that even the Mentor is too far gone to help anyone now. He was looking to Peeta, hoping that he would be a beacon of light to lead him out of the darkness. Peeta's light has gone out. They're all stretched to their limits. Peeta thinks that he'll never see Haymitch again. He'll die here in this house alone. He probably deserves to.


	6. Chapter 6

"He's gone."

"Almost."

The three word conversation echos in her head for hours until something louder drowns it out.

_Your fault your fault your fault._

It gets louder. She thinks she forms her first coherent thought since she's been home. She did this to Peeta. Because of her, he was ready to die in the first Games to save her life. Because of her, he volunteered in the second round when he could have stayed safely in District 12. Because of her, he was taken by the Capitol, tortured into oblivion, hijacked beyond repair. Because of her, he's dealing with all of this alone now. She deserves to be alone, without comfort, without company. He does not. If anyone in this world deserves happiness, she thinks, it is Peeta Mellark. And if there's anyone less deserving of him, of the memory of him, it is her. That's all he is to her, to himself, to anyone. A memory. She feels something. She hasn't felt anything in weeks, maybe months. She feels guilt. She wonders who's worse off right now. Him? Or her? She chides herself for turning their pain into a competition. They've had enough competitions to last them a lifetime. The Games are over. The war is over. At least, they are for her. Not for Peeta. Peeta is still fighting. This much she knows. The guilt multiplies. She has to do something before it crushes her.


	7. Chapter 7

He returns to the desolate art studio and all the black stares him in the face. It seeps from the canvases, through his eyes, until it fills his brain. He shakes. He knows its time for the daily flashback, for the constant reminder that he's too weak to fight anymore. He knows it would probably be easier if she was here to hold him. He knows it would probably be one thousand times worse.

* * *

The headache is not aided by the vibrant colors coating everything in the room. He does not remember the details of the flashback. Everything in the studio is coated with thick layers of paint, including himself. The canvases are broken. The brushes are broken. The pallets are broken. There is no paint left. Good, he thinks. He doesn't want to paint ever again. He just wants to sleep. Forever. He knows he should be hungry. He isn't. He hasn't been hungry for weeks, months. He wants to bake anyway. He probably can't remember how to scrape together the simplest loaf of bread. Real Peeta laughs at Other Peeta inside his head. Real Peeta is an expert baker. Other Peeta accepts the challenge. In his kitchen, his hands move independently from his mind to pull out the necessary ingredients, mix them together, shape them into rolls, put them in the oven. This isn't like painting. He needs no creativity or inspiration for this. This is muscle memory. When he pulls the rolls from the oven, the scent hits his nose and he realizes that he's made cheese buns. He remembers that she's always love his cheese buns. He thinks of her, and has no flashback. He thinks of her, and comes close to tears. He thinks of her, and collapses in his bed without showering away the paint that covers every inch of him.


	8. Chapter 8

She's not thinking, she's not thinking, she's not thinking. Her legs move independently from her mind to dress in clean clothes, pull on her boots, leave her house, enter his. She has to see him, if nothing else, to determine how he is doing, to confirm that he is alive, so that maybe she can get a little peace of mind. She is selfish. She knows it. She knows what happened the last time he saw her. She knows this could probably kill him, kill the both of them. She doesn't care much about her life, and she suspects that he feels similarly about his. It doesn't matter. He isn't in the kitchen or the living room, and quite frankly, she doesn't have the energy to climb the stairs. Pathetic. She sits herself at his kitchen table, waiting for him to come, selfishly picking at a cheese bun. The buns are warm. He baked recently. Maybe he isn't as bad as she thought he was. She hears the shower start. Maybe he isn't as bad as she thought. She almost doesn't hear him come down the stairs, but he's never had her light hunter's footsteps, so she knows he's coming before she sees him. Maybe he isn't as bad as she thought. She steels herself. She hears him stop in his tracks, then, without a word, he takes the seat across from her. He stares while she picks at the bun. She isn't hungry, so she puts it down and stares back. The first thing she notices is his wet hair. Its way longer than she ever remembered it being, but its still shiny and blonde and curly. She has hope. Then, she notices his eyes. Still blue, but sunken. The bags look like huge purple bruises. His cheeks look hollow and his lips are raw and chapped. His nails are bitten down to nothing. She wonders how long they spend just looking each other up and down before he speaks.

"You're in my house. Real or not real?"

She doesn't know what to say. She's shocked by the sound of his voice. It isn't his voice. It's deeper and softer and darker. She wonders what she sounds like when she isn't yelling one word responses at Haymitch. She decides to find out.

"Real."

She doesn't sound like Katniss. Her voice is weaker and ragged and broken. He stares back for a minute, nods, and retreats back up the stairs. She has to get out of here. She has to go far away. He's not as bad as she thought he was. He's worse.


	9. Chapter 9

When he wakes, he doesn't know who he is. _My name is Peeta Mellark, _he reminds himself. _I'm_… he can't remember if he's seventeen or eighteen. He can't remember his birthday. Defeated, he showers the paint away, but when he looks into the mirror, he still can't see himself. He thinks he'll make some more bread, but when he goes downstairs, Katniss fucking Everdeen is sitting in his kitchen. Who does she think she is? She broke into his house. He hates her for this. He's so glad she's here. Maybe he keeps the door unlocked for a reason. He decides that he needs to get a better look at her, not caring if it will bring on a flashback or not. She had to have known that she's risking her life coming over here, unannounced and alone. He takes the seat across from her and stares while she picks at one of the cheese buns. Her hair is matted and unbrushed in a way that sort of resembles Buttercup's fur, but it's still soft and brown and almost braided. Her eyes are grayer than he remembers. Darker. Clouded with memories she wishes she didn't have. She has dark bags, but they've got nothing on his, which look more like bruises on his cheek bones. She's small. So small. Too small. Starved. Its like she isn't even here. Maybe she isn't.

"You're in my house. Real or not real?"'

She hesitates for a long time before she speaks. He tries not to move while he waits for an answer, hyper aware of the fact that he'll probably have a flashback any second. He doesn't know why he cares. He's accepted the pain and the confusion. He wonders if it has anything to do with the fact that he cared for her in a different life.

"Real."

She's here, but he has no clue why, and he doesn't want to ask. He doesn't care. He's far past caring. He can't have a conversation with her right now. He's too tired, even though he's been sleeping for the better part of his life now a days. So, he goes back upstairs, leaving her behind, but he doesn't go to his room. He can feel the flashback coming, and this time, he has a plan. He digs around in the storage closet for a padlock before heading to the art studio. He locks himself in and hides the key in an empty paint can, which he places in a corner with a few other empty cans and splints of wood. Then, he braces himself and prepares to become a slave to the venom yet again.


	10. Chapter 10

She runs from her problems, like she always does. This time, as she crashes through the forest, it feels different. She doesn't bother to be quiet, to watch where she steps, to avoid leaving a trail. She isn't hunting anything and nothing is hunting her. She is, however, being chased. Chased by the ghosts of a boy and a girl who used to frequent the forest as a refuge. They don't come here anymore. They'll never come here again. She can't escape the ghosts. She can escape Peeta. She can escape seeing his sunken eyes and bitten lips and facial expression that is all surrender and no fight. She can escape hearing his voice, all anger and sadness, no hope. She makes it to the shack in the middle of the woods on pure adrenaline. By the time she's through the door, its dark outside. She deposits herself on the floor in front of the empty fireplace and shakes from the cold. She's so tired. Her body hurts everywhere. Her muscles burn. Her eyes start to droop, but she forces them open, only to find them closing again. She doesn't want to sleep. She can't sleep. She can't handle the nightmares tonight. Maybe, she reasons, if she's tired enough she'll simply fall unconscious and have no nightmares at all. Her eyes fall shut again, and this time she doesn't know how to open them. She prays that she's tired enough. She prays that she won't wake up.

Tonight, it's different. Tonight, it's no one's fault but her own. Tonight, it's all too accurate. Tonight, she sees herself, decked out in all black, sporting vicious looking claws and deadly fangs and fresh wounds and a cunning grin. She's the one who puts the spear in Rue's chest. She's the one who poisons Mags. She's the one who rips Finnick's head off in the depths of the Capitol sewers. She's the one who lights her sister on fire. She's the one who sticks her hands in Peeta's head and scrambles everything around, changes him, turns him into something he's not. His worst nightmare. She made it reality. She made this all reality.

Upon waking, she realizes that she liked it better when she felt nothing at all. She liked it better when she was sitting in her bed, mind void of thoughts, save that of her own death. She liked it better when she was numb and empty. Now, she's all guilt. She gasps for air as she tries to forget the nightmare. Warm tears spill from her eyes and freeze on her cheeks. She cries for hours, but makes no sound. She hopes she'll drown in her tears. She hopes she'll have the willpower or luck to remain here until she dies. She hopes she'll never have to see Peeta again. She can't tell it she's selfish or self-sacrificing. Probably the former.


	11. Chapter 11

They're so much worse when he doesn't try to fight them. Lately, he hasn't had much fight in him. He doesn't see the point. He used to fight them off for her, but she isn't here with him anymore. He just lets the venom hit him full force, rides it out, wakes up, and waits for it to happen again. This is his life now. When he wakes this time, it's to the sound of Haymitch banging on his door and calling his name.

"Peeta Mellark I know you're in there! Mellark you piece of shit! Come out here right now!"

He surveys his surroundings. Nothing seems touched, and he's curled in a tight ball in the corner of the room. This flashback was different. He didn't damage anything. He stands and the room tips on its axis. He falls. He stands again. This time, he's able to retrieve the key from its hiding place and unlock the door for the Mentor, only to find himself pinned to a wall. Haymitch holds him by the front of his shirt with one hand and grips his shoulder with the other while slowly looking him up and down. Peeta blinks slowly, uncaring, trying not to black out from the headache. Haymitch lets him go and Peeta has to press his palms to the wall to keep upright.

"You seen Katniss?"

"She was here."

"Here?"

"Yes."

"When?"

Peeta shrugs.

"Why?"

He shrugs again.

"What happened?"

"I came downstairs and she was just sitting at my kitchen table. We sat for a while but we didn't talk. When I went upstairs she was still here. I haven't seen her since."

"You had an episode?"

"Yeah," Peeta says in a matter-of-fact voice.

"You locked yourself in here so you wouldn't hurt her?"

He didn't think about why he locked himself in. He didn't think he did it for her. He doesn't want to admit that he's still trying to protect her. It's stupid.

"I was just sick of destroying my shit."

Peeta never used to curse.

"She's been gone for three days."

He finds that he doesn't need the wall for support anymore.

"Three days? Has anyone looked for her? Did she tell anyone where she was going?"

"We looked everywhere. Can't find her."

"Even the forest?"

"Thom and some others were there yesterday. You have no idea where she would have gone?"

"No idea," Peeta confirms.

Silence follows.

"I'm going to look," Peeta claims.

"No way."

He's gone to his room and pulled on a long sleeve t-shirt and an old pair of boots before Haymitch can say anything else. He's out the door before Haymitch is down the stairs. He hears the Mentor calling his name, but he pays no heed as he runs into the forest with no idea how or why. He knows nothing except for the fact that he has to find her. He just saw her. She was just alive. It would be better for him if she were dead. It would be easier if she were dead. It would ruin him if she were dead. So, he runs aimlessly, endlessly, through the trees. He runs until he can't run anymore. Then, he walks. He doesn't stop moving. He won't stop moving until he finds her. His lungs feel tight and when a sharp pain slices through his head, he knows the adrenaline is running low. He finally stops, doubling over, aching everywhere. He turns his head to the side, trying to catch his breath. That's when he sees it. From his folded position, hands braced on his knees, neck craned to the side, panting uncontrollably, he spots the cabin. It screams her name. His breath suddenly catches in his throat. He can run again. He runs into the house. She's there, curled in a ball on the ground in front of an unlit fire. He's by her side before he knows what he's doing.

"Katniss. Katniss!"

He calls her name as he shakes her. Her body feels hot. He feels a pulse. She's alive. He breaths a little easier. He shakes harder, screams louder. Her eyes flutter and, without thinking, he collects her limp form into his arms and holds her. She shivers against him. He feels her arms go around him. She shivers and he tries to rub warmth into her, even though he can feel the heat radiating from her.

"Are you cold?"

She nods.

He takes off his shirt and puts it on her. She doesn't protest.

"We're going home. Do you know how to get us home?"

"Why are you here, Peeta?"

"I don't know."

"I'm not going home with you."

"Please."

"Why?"

"I don't know."

She stares at him for a long time. He stares at the wall behind her. He really doesn't know. He just knows that he needs her back in her house. He needs to know that she's safe. He needs to know that she's there, across the street, being looked after by Haymitch and Greasy Sae. That's all.

"Take me home," she says.

She's weak, too weak to walk. She leans heavily on him for the majority of the time. She only speaks to give him directions. He doesn't speak at all. When her legs have given out too many times, he carries her the rest of the way in his arms. He tries not to look at her. He tries not think about the way she feels pressed against him. They take the long way home to avoid having to walk directly through the town. She's barely conscious when he places her down on her sofa, but he's never felt more alive. He did it. He didn't have a flashback. He doesn't feel one coming. He feels something different. Not happiness, that's too far fetched. Not hope, that would be wishful thinking. Maybe pride. He's proud. Maybe he's improving. He turns to leave when she grabs for his hand.


	12. Chapter 12

She feels feverish. She knows she's back in her house. She knows Peeta brought her here. She doesn't know how. She doesn't know why. She feels him leaving and gathers all her strength to reach for his hand. By some miracle of nature, she grabs it and begs him to stay. She doesn't know why she does it. Then, before she can fall asleep, he's shaking her violently again. For a second, she's scared, but then she hears his question.

"When was the last time you had something to drink?"

"Before," is all she can choke out.

He silently makes her drink a few glasses of water before he lets her rest.

She thinks she feels him try to leave again. He can't leave.

"Stay with me?"

She hears him whisper a word back, but she doesn't quite catch it.

* * *

When she wakes, Haymitch is passed out on the chair across from her and Peeta is sleeping on the floor next to her couch, their hands still intertwined. She feels her face flush and slips her hand away. She feels nauseous and bolts from the couch to the bathroom, stepping on Peeta in the process. When she emerges, he's sitting on her couch with more water. He hands it to her and she drinks it. They sit in silence, staring at Haymitch, until Greasy Sae opens the door.

"Thank God you're okay!"

Sae is holding her in her frail arms and for a second, she's nostalgic for her mother.

"You're burning with fever, dear."

Sae hurries off to busy herself in the kitchen and Peeta stands to leave. She wants to ask him to stay again. She can't make herself do it this time. The guilt comes flooding back again, crashing into her chest like a tidal wave. He saved her. Again. He saved her after she abandoned him. She was too weak, too stubborn, to do anything for him, but somehow, he saved her again. He keeps rescuing her and she keeps fucking him over. She lets him leave, thinking that he's better off away from her.


	13. Chapter 13

He leaves, thinking that she's better off away from him. She's in good hands. She's home safe and Greasy Sae is there to nurse her back to health. She doesn't need him there. He doesn't need to be there. He doesn't know why he did what he did. He doesn't know why he went after her and brought her home and fell asleep holding her hand. He doesn't want this. He can't want this. He can't want her. He lets out a violent cough as soon as he's through his door. He thinks that maybe he caught her fever. He doesn't bother turing on any lights. He just goes to the kitchen, vomits in the trash can, gets a glass of water, and collapses onto the couch. He places the water on the coffee table next to a book and sets the trash can by his head. He turns on the light and tries to read, but it gives him a headache. He thinks that he likes the feverish sickness better than the tracker jacker venom sickness. He didn't have a flashback yesterday, or last night, or this morning. He vomits again and thinks that he's never felt better.

He dreams of her. He dreams of her in a way that he hasn't in a very long time. When he wakes, he's not sweating or screaming or delusional. He's calm. He doesn't remember the dream exactly, but he knows he dreamt of her, the real her, the one he used to love. He wonders fleetingly if that girl still exists. He dismisses the thought, deciding that she isn't the problem. The boy who used to love her is gone. It would be a betrayal of his childhood self, trying to love her the way he is now. He doesn't know what time it is. He doesn't even know what day it is. All he knows is that it's dark and he must be breaking some kind of personal record for time gone without a flashback. His body shivers and sweats at the same time and his muscles react poorly to his attempt to leave the couch, but he reminds himself that the fever virus is nothing compared to the tracker jacker venom. Maybe his body is too weak to react to the venom. No, that isn't right. If anything, the illness would make him more prone to having an episode. He decides not to think about it, opting to sleep his flu away. In the natural darkness, he finds slumber with a discerning ease that he has never been used to.

The next few days, or what he guesses to be days, go by routinely. He sleeps less, falling back into his patterns of insomnia, but he does muster up enough strength to move around the lower level a little bit. He walks to the bathroom to relieve himself and clean the bucket that catches his vomit, which is mostly just stomach bile. He walks to the kitchen and forces himself to eat small portions of mild foods and drink water. He finishes his novel. He tries to control the venom. He succeeds. He tries not to think of Katniss, which is really one in the same task. He doesn't do as well. In his feverish slumbers, he often dreams of her. Most of the delusions are unpleasant, as he is accustomed to, but he handles them well upon waking, reassuring himself that she means him no harm. Some of the flu-induced dreams are more pleasant, like the first one. When the sun sets yet again and he forces his eyes closed, trying to allow his body to fend off the virus, he doses off more easily than he expected. In his dream, she's there with him, sitting on the floor, holding his hand like he did hers after bringing her home. When he wakes, he misses the feeling of her small, delicate, soft hand in his large, destructive, calloused one. Then, he realizes that he can't miss something he hasn't lost. He must be hallucinating. He still feels her hand in his. Slowly, he tilts his head to the side. He sees her. She is here. She is holding his hand. He can't throw himself from the couch fast enough. She wakes and scampers until her back hits his door. He moves away from her until he's crashed into the opposite wall. He sinks to the floor and she hugs her knees to her chest. He feels the venom boiling in his veins.

"Katniss," he growls. "You need to leave."

He forces his eyes shut, feeling sick from the flu and from the venom and from her proximity to him and from his inability to handle it. When he opens them, she hasn't moved. He grinds out a word that kind of sounds like "go." She does the opposite. Slowly, meticulously, she stands and starts to inch towards him. He recoils into himself, trying to dissolve into the bricks. She crouches in front of him and takes his hands again. He's trapped. He's trapped in between two worlds. He's being pulled towards the world of the Capitol and the venom and the hallucinations and the mutts, but he sees her in front of him, moving her lips to form words he can't hear. He wants to hear her words. He knows they are hard to come by. He focuses on trying to hear her. Eventually, he does. By this time, he's seeing stars and he can't tell if he's hot or cold, but he focuses on her lips. He only breaks his concentration to vomit on the floor next to him. When he looks back to her, he can hear her clearly.

"Peeta?" she says his name like she's pleading for her life.

"Peeta can you hear me? Can you hear me now?"

He nods his assent and she sighs deeply in front of him, dropping her head to her lap. She gets up and he breathes deeply while she mops up his vomit. He's grateful, but can't make himself tell her.

"Let's get you to your bed, okay?"

He shakes his head more violently than he should have. His nightmares are worse in his bedroom than they are in the living room.

"No. The couch. Please."

She doesn't protest. She helps him walk, similarly to how he helped her home from the forest, with one of his arms around her shoulders and one of her hands gripping his hip bone tightly. He falls hard onto the cushions, accidentally taking her with him. He doesn't need to ask. She stays, sandwiched between the back of the couch and his chest.


	14. Chapter 14

She doesn't want to think about it. She doesn't want to think about the fact that as soon as Sae deemed her well enough to be left alone, she rushed over to Peeta's. She doesn't want to think about the fact that she could practically feel the heat from the fever radiating off him from the door. She doesn't want to think about the fact that she had Sae to take care of her and Haymitch for company while she recovered and Peeta, as per usual, had no one. She doesn't want to think about the fact that she held a cold towel to his head and fell asleep with her hand in his. She doesn't want to think about his flashback. She doesn't want to think about the fact that she spent the night with him on his couch. She just wants to feel the steady beating of his heart under her head. She just wants to stare at the sunlight as it streams in through the window, illuminating his blonde eyelashes, making them appear impossibly long. She just wants to stay with him and make sure he's okay, at least until his fever breaks, to make up for all she's put him through. She knows she can never make up for it. She has to try. The idea fills her. She dedicates herself to it. She has to help him. He needs her. She reluctantly admits to herself that she clearly needs him too. As soon as his eyes open, she's propped up on her elbows, badgering him with questions.

"How do you feel? Do you need anything? Are you hungry? Thirsty?"

She sees him smile for the first time in God knows how long.

"I feel better. I think the fever broke."

She exhales, blowing a loose piece of hair from her face.

"Thank God."

"Katniss? You… um… you were here last night, right?"

"Real. I was here. I just came over to check on you and to thank you for… what you did the other day… and you didn't look so well. So I stayed. And then you almost had a flashback. And I stayed again. I hope that's okay."

He just nods. The smile fades. The glimpse she caught of the old Peeta vanishes.

"I'm going to shower," he politely informs her.

He'll never forgive her. She needs him to forgive her. He doesn't want her. She needs him to want her.

"Oh. Okay. I'll go home then."

"No."

He presses his palms to his eyes, struggling with himself, she knows. Trying to find words. He never used to have a hard time finding words.

"Just… just wait for me."

They make eye contact. She knows he's implying more than what he's saying. Her stomach tightens and she presses her lips together, slowly nodding. He tries to smile again. His smile isn't what it used to be.


	15. Chapter 15

He prays that she'll wait for him. Really wait for him. He's just so confused. When he woke up with Katniss pressed into his chest, before he was fully aware, before he had too much time to think, he was happy. She had stayed with him. He had loved her again. But, when his eyes adjusted to the light and the clouds of sleep cleared from his mind, the happiness slipped away as quickly as it had come. He was confused and frustrated. Frustrated because he had stupidly allowed himself to revel in her presence, to soak her in, to hold her as if she was his, as if he wasn't stealing her away from a different Peeta who might have had a shot at deserving her. Frustrated because he had let his bliss slip away and reverted back to his usual train of thought. It was all so confusing. He was angry at himself because he forgot how to love her. He was even angered because he could never truly forget, even though he knew it would be for the best if he did. Before he lost his mind, he always used to know what to say. Now, he can't even begin to express any of his feelings to Katniss. All he can do is pray that she'll wait for him to figure it out. He wants to figure it out. He hopes that he won't be able to. When he comes back downstairs, his curls are damp and he no longer smells like vomit and he's wearing clean clothes, but Katniss is still sitting on his couch. He shivers, and she's immediately on her feet, starting a fire with wood that he certainly didn't collect himself. He just grabs a quilt and wraps it around his shoulders, taking a seat on the couch. When she's done with her work at his fireplace, she sits next to him. She sits close. Too close. He retreats back into his shell, chiding himself for what he said earlier. Wait for me? What was he thinking? She'd have to wait her whole life for the Peeta that cared for her to return. But if he didn't care for her anymore, what made him run through the woods to find her, to carry her home, to stay with her, to pull her into his arms and fall asleep, asking her to wait for him upon waking? He couldn't love her, not anymore. That would be impossible. But he can't think straight, so he doesn't think at all. They sit shoulder to shoulder, not thinking, not speaking, not moving, barely breathing. He's not supposed to be thinking, but nevertheless, something creeps into his brain anyway. It's simple, really. He just wants to make polite conversation. But this new Peeta didn't care about being polite to anyone, especially not Katniss Everdeen, so maybe he was genuinely interested in eliciting an answer from her.

"How are you?" He asked.

"Swell. How are you?"

Her voice was monotone. It didn't carry the same beautiful notes it used to when she spoke, her voice like a song. She sounded completely and utterly drained.

"Just grand," he replied.

Silence engulfed them. She broke it.

"We shouldn't lie to each other."

"Probably not. I think we're past the point of trying to spare each other's feelings or preserve mental health or anything."

She scoffed.

"How are you?" He asked again.

"I'd rather be dead. How are you?"

"I don't know. I don't remember shit. I'm blacked out half the time. I can't even tell you what goddamn month it is. I feel like I'm already dead."


	16. Chapter 16

Her heart broke for him. Peeta Mellark, her Peeta, her boy with the bread, her dandelion in the spring, clearly didn't have an ounce of hope left in his body. She couldn't take it. It completely disarmed and alarmed her. It kick started her brain again. It woke her up. Of course, even if he didn't know it, he was the only person with the ability to shake Katniss out of her depression. Because she knew that she couldn't die knowing that he might follow shortly behind. Maybe once she got him back, then she'd be able to go. Something at the pit of her stomach told her that she wouldn't want to leave him even if she knew he was fully recovered.

"Peeta," she sighed.

Her voice was soft, but at least there was a tone to it. She found a new purpose. She was going to dedicate herself to protecting this boy, to healing him. Something lights inside of her, and she knows she wants nothing more than to have her Peeta back. She wants him to look at her with bright blue eyes and she wants him to hold her in his arms and she wants him to brush his lips on hers and she wants him to want her. God, does she want to be able to kiss him again. She wants him to be able to kiss her back. The flame grows. She needs to get him back. She can't live without him.

"Katniss, I'm so confused. I don't… I don't know why, but I think you can help me. Help me. Please say you'll help me."

He's begging, tears brimming in his eyes, and she sets on fire.

"Of course I'll help you, Peeta. I'll always help you. Always. I won't leave you again."

His body visibly deflates in relief, but he doesn't touch her. She wants him to.

"I wish I wasn't always so tired."

"It's okay. Go to sleep. I'll wake you up tomorrow morning and you can start fresh."

More tension seeps from his body, and he takes her hand, squeezing gently. She squeezes back, but doesn't lighten her grip. But, before she knows it, he's slipping his hand out of hers, slipping away from her again. She starts to choke out his name, to beg him to stay with her, but she doesn't need to. He lies his head in her lap, closes his eyes, and within minutes, his breathing slows. She runs her hands through his long blonde curls the way she used to, but she doesn't let herself sleep. She can't risk having a nightmare and waking him. She doesn't want to disturb him. So she doesn't move and she doesn't sleep. She just weaves her fingers through his golden locks and gets lost staring at his long eyelashes and high cheekbones and strong jawline until the sun sets and she can no longer make out his perfect, broken features. When the sun rises, she wakes him.


	17. Chapter 17

He wakes up with his head in her lap as she gently shakes his shoulder. She's here. His whole body tenses and she stops her movements, her hand turning to stone on his shoulder. _Bitch_, his mind whispers. He hates himself for thinking it. He can't help it. After all this time alone with the venom, without her, he's been well conditioned to hate her with every fiber of his being. And for a second, right when he wakes up, he does. His hands twitch to ring her neck, but he clenches them to the point of pain and controls the animalistic urge. He opens his eyes and she's staring down at him. Grey on blue. There's something in the way that she looks at him, eyes filled with passion and concern and desperation and something else that he can't put his finger on, that makes him realize that he could never hate her. He wants her back in his life. He needs her in his life. She's here now. She's actually here. To him, it feels unreal. It can't be possible.

"You stayed with me, real or not real?"

"Real."

"You wanted to?"

"Mmh."

"Katniss.."

He says her name through gritted teeth, like it burns his tongue, but he unclenches his fists and relaxes his muscles despite himself.

"How do you feel?"

"Less feverish."

"You still look sick."

He lets the silence engulf them. That's just how he looks now. She chews her lip and he realizes that he should probably sit up. He can't make himself. He's inexplicably comfortable right where he is. He feels safe, which confuses him. He isn't safe when Katniss is touching him. She isn't safe for him. No, he corrects himself, understating that it's him who isn't safe for her. But he craves her touch, and he's a selfish man. He literally has to force himself from her lap. He sits and rubs the sleep from his eyes as she makes her way to his kitchen.

"Peeta, there's no food in here," she calls.

"I could, um, make us some bread? Cheese buns?"

Her eyes light up, cutting the tension that hangs between them.

He doesn't bother changing out of his sweat pants or putting on a shirt or brushing his teeth. He just gets to work. She keeps her distance, watching him from across the island in the middle of his kitchen. He doesn't like it. He knows this is the way it has to be. At least for now. He's at a loss for words to start a conversation with her, so he just stares back as he works.

They size each other up as if they've never met before. As if they hadn't been allies, friends, lovers. As if they hadn't held each other together all those nights on the train. As if they hadn't shared dozens of kisses. Those moments belong to a different Katniss and a different Peeta. They belong to naive children who loved their families and ate lunch with their friends and slept through classes. Those children thought the odds were in their favor. They never thought that their names would actually be picked out of that glass bowl. They never thought that they would fight for their lives and survive. They never thought that they would become killers. They never thought that they would become national symbols. They never thought that they would change the fate of their country. They never thought that they would be put through the wringer and come out the way they did.

They are not those children anymore. They know better now. The odds were never in their favor. She is no longer the simple hunter girl, struggling to provide for her family. He is no longer the baker's son, smiling and waving at everyone he passes. She is the mentally unstable girl who lost her sister, the only person in the world she was sure she loved. He is the tortured orphan boy who had the misfortune of having his fate tied to hers. His heart aches for his brothers, his father, and even his mother. His cheeks heat and his vision blurs and he finds himself having to squeeze his eyes shut to hold back tears. He lost his entire family. He grips the counter to keep upright. He hates the raw sadness of _real _memories. He almost prefers the manufactured ones.

"Peeta?"

Her small voice forces him to straighten his spine and open his eyes.

"It's not a flashback, is it?"

He shakes his head and she waits a long moment before asking,

"What is it then?"

"My family. They're all dead."

He doesn't phrase it like a question. He knows this is real.

He feels her hand on top of his and knows that is real as well. That is a good feeling, her skin on his, and it is real. He focuses on that instead of his pain. He forgot what it was like to have something else to focus on. But now she's with him and she's somehow unknowingly pulling him back out of his own dark mind and into the light of the kitchen. He feels the sunshine warming the back of his neck from the window above his kitchen sink and he feels her hand warming his from where it rests and he decides that for right now, he can keep going. He finds the strength to pull his hand out from under hers and she sits back in her stool as he finishes off the buns. He's feeling almost relaxed until he burns his hand putting the pastries into the oven.


	18. Chapter 18

She won't run from him anymore. She can't. She is tethered to him. Somehow, she knows they are attached, and she doesn't want to cut the tie anymore. She likes it. She likes _him_. All of him. Even if he doesn't. And it's these feelings that she can't make disappear that drive her to his side. Not pity or guilt or responsibility. She genuinely cares for Peeta Mellark. If nothing else, she knows she cares. She doesn't push herself to read any further into it.

This time, the flashback hits hard and fast. When he grabs the hot rack in the oven by mistake, she knows it isn't the physical pain that brings him to his knees, but rather, the memory of something similar. She hopes she can help him before it goes to far, like last time. She doesn't want to clean up his vomit again. She's on her knees at his side before she knows it. This time, he doesn't push her away. He does the opposite. He grabs her hands and looks right into her eyes. Blue on grey. She tries to speak as calmly as she possibly can, using his name a lot and reassuring him.

"Peeta, it's okay. You're gonna be okay. It isn't real, Peeta. It's not real. Peeta, I promise you it's not real. You're safe. You're safe."

She sees him fighting to hang onto her words, but they aren't enough.

She slowly extracts her hands from his and carefully winds her arms around his waist, cuddling up to his side. She rubs slow circles on his back and thinks she feels his breathing steady a little.

She's still trying to protect him. It isn't enough. She needs to protect him. So, like she did in the depths of the Capitol, she presses her lips to his and desperately kisses him.

He doesn't kiss her back. Not even close. But after a few minutes of having her lips locked firmly on his, she feels him pull her down completely onto his lap. She straddles him now, and he still doesn't move to return her kiss. She doesn't want to admit it, but she can't deny that she feels a little disappointed and slightly rejected. She knows it's something he has to do on his own time. She knows he may never trust her completely again. For now, he holds her firmly and rests his head in the crook of her neck, just above her collarbone.

"Katniss," he whispers.

This time, her name sounds beautiful when coming from his lips. He doesn't spit it like it's poison, like he's been doing.

Whenever he says her name, it makes her heart beat faster. It lights a fire in her. No matter how he says it.

"I just want to help you, Peeta. I just want to make all of this end. It isn't fair. And I know I can't fix it or anything…"

He cuts her off.

"You can. It's easier when you're here. You saved me."


	19. Chapter 19

She saved him. She wasn't the problem, she was the solution. He needs her. He _has_ her. She's here in his lap, holding him together because he can't do it himself. He realizes that she's given herself to him completely, but this time, it's him who can't give her anything back.

"I'm sorry," he whispers into her neck.

She pulls away and looks him dead in the eyes.

"Don't you dare be sorry for something you can't control."

He shakes his head.

"It's not that. It's… I'm… I can't… I'm not the same person I was. I want to be, but I don't remember _how_. I feel like… I mean… I know I used love you. But loving you feels like a distant memory. And I don't think it's something I can ever truly forget, but right now, it's just _so hard_ to remember. I just… I know who I used to be, but it's not who I am now. I know I used to paint beautifully and bake easily and smile like nothing could ever make me sad and I never stumbled on words when I spoke and I loved you with everything I was. And maybe back then I deserved you. But now, the way I am now, well, I could never deserve you like this. Because you shouldn't have to deal with this."

He removes her from his lap with ease so that she's sitting next to him. Their hips touch. He stands up. So does she.

"Come with me," she tells him.

Then, she marches out of his door.

He knows she's always been hot-headed. He also knows he's never been able to say no to her. So he follows. He knows he's playing with fire here, but he's already been burned.

He follows her across the street and into her house. When he enters, she's standing in the kitchen, pointing to a leather-bound book on the table.

"Do you recognize this?" She asks.

"It's your fathers plant book."

"Right. Well, I'm expanding it. I'm making a memory book. And you're helping."

"A memory book?"

"Yeah. A memory book. So we don't forget everyone we lost, and all the loses we were responsible for. I'll write, you'll draw."

He's definitely playing with fire now. This isn't going to help him remember anything. It's just going to earn him a one way ticket to the land of the hijacked. Before he can protest, she's talking again. He can't remember the last time he saw her talk with such passion. But then again, he can't remember much of anything.

"You said you wanted to remember who you are. I know who you are, and I'm going to remind you. So you're helping me with my project, and I'm helping you with yours. Whatever questions you have while you're drawing, you can ask me. And for the record, I don't 'have to' deal with you. I choose to."

It's such a Katniss thing to say, and the her-ness of it all almost makes him laugh out loud. But he composes his features and tells her,

"I don't draw anymore."

She scowls.

"You do. And you will. I used to watch you draw, and I remember thinking you never looked so at peace, so comfortable, so _you._"

She pauses, forgetting the angry facade she's adopted momentarily. She looks at him and huffs, pushing the cardboard box on the table towards him. He opens it and inhales deeply at the scent of fresh parchment and colored pencils.

"I don't…"

"YOU DO!"

He sighs. He still can't say no to her.

"Where do we start?"

She sets her jaw and answers with determination.

"My sister."

The look in her eyes baffles him. She looks strong, and he feels strong looking at her, but he sees and incredible amount of pain behind her grey irises. It's like she's fighting to keep her emotions from exploding through the cracks in her skin. He knows better. He knows they'll explode anyway. He knows they'll shatter her. He feels strange. He feels like he wants to be here for her when they do. He feels like he can help her, too. He feels like if he does, he might have a shot at deserving her again. So he takes a seat at the kitchen table and starts sketching Prim's face.


	20. Chapter 20

She sits next to him and tries to put pencil to paper. Tries to scratch out words on the parchment about her little sister. Tries to sum her up so she'll be memorialized in the book. The book of dead people. Despite the seemingly endless stacks, she'll probably run out of pages. Her sister is dead. Dead and never coming back. She risks a glance at Peeta, who keeps crumpling up pieces of parchment and tossing them on the floor around him in an aggravated manner. She can't cry in front of him anymore. She promised herself she wouldn't. She told herself that at this point, he needs her more than she needs him.

Maybe it was a bad idea to start with Prim. Who else can she write about? Finnick? Cinna? Rue? All dead. She killed them all. She can't break down. She can't break down. Write about Prim. Write about Prim. Prim. Prim. She's crying now, the silent, painful kind. The kind where the tears run down her cheeks like rain in a hurricane and she knows she's powerless to stop them. She tries to get up, get away from Peeta, but he reaches out and grabs her wrist before she can put enough distance between them. For a second, she thinks he's going to attack her, that he's having a flashback and he'll off her right here, but that's not the case.

"We didn't have to do this, Katniss."

"No… I wanted to," she chokes out.

"We're not ready. It can wait. We'll do it, but not right now, okay?"

"You're ready. You're fine. You're better than fine! This is my problem. I'm the one who can't face my demons. I'm… I… I…"

She sobbing with even more fervor an he cuts her off, rising to her level and taking her in his arms.

"I can't do it either, Katniss. But I'll be able to. We'll be able to. I know it."

Her body shakes in his warm embrace, but he holds fast. She's shocked by his words. He almost sounds like the old Peeta. The Real Peeta. Hopeful. Her dandelion in the spring. Maybe there's a chance she's starting to get him back.

"I'm afraid I'll forget her. I'm afraid I'll forget them all. We owe it to them to remember them. We killed them. We killed them!"

"I know."

She's screaming now, letting the tears run freely, too tired and achey to try to hold them back. He scoops her up in his strong, muscled arms and carries her all the way to her bed. When he sets her down, she refuses to unwind her arms from around his neck. He's all she has left. He stays with her as she cries herself to sleep.


	21. Chapter 21

She's not having a nightmare. She's having full on night terrors. He doesn't remember them being this bad, but then again, he doesn't have a reliable memory. He's frozen in bed next to her as she thrashes around, covered in a sheen of sweat. Her hair is plastered to her forehead and her limbs flail in every direction, occasionally missing him by only a small margin. And the screams, oh, the screams. They rip violently from her throat and remind him of the sounds Johanna made when she was electrocuted.

He sits there, every muscle in his body clenched, checking and triple checking to make sure he won't have a flashback. He wants to help her. He's so scared he'll hurt her.

She starts to cry hysterically, but she's still not conscious.

"Katniss?"

He reaches out to her tentatively. He touches her shoulder, damp with sweat.

"Katniss, you have to wake up."

He knows this will never work. He knows he has to wake her up, and this isn't the way to do it. He has to take a chance. He can't stand bearing witness to her pain any longer. He grits his teeth and straddles her failing body, carefully capturing her arms and pinning them to the bed. She screams louder.

"Katniss! Wake up! It's just a dream! It's not real! You're safe!"

Their screams are so loud, he's surprised Haymitch hasn't come running over to save his mockingjay.

She screams herself hoarse and stops fighting him, letting out a whisper that sounds vaguely like his name. Her breathing steadies slightly, letting him know that she's slowly rejoining the world. He takes the opportunity to scoop her into his lap, cradling her like a child. She's panting hard, trying to catch her breath, still not fully awake. He pushes her hair away from her face and whispers comforting words to her until she stops shaking, finally coming undone in his arms. She falls apart in a way he's never seen before, going completely limp on top of him. For a second, he thinks she's dead.

"Katniss! Are you okay!?"

He gathers her up, putting her back together in his arms. They're face to face now, staring into each others eyes. She looks frantic, but she's awake and alive. She sighs with relief and grabs a fistful of his shirt, urgently pressing her forehead to his. She's straddling him now and he's holding her to him tighter than humanly possible. He senses her immediacy. She's fully conscious now.

"What happened? Was it Prim?"

"No…"

She trails off, fresh tears spilling off her cheeks, drenching his shoulder.

"What, then? Do you not want to talk about it? We don't have to talk about it."

"It was you! They took you from me, Peeta! Again!"

She's a wreck again, inconsolable as she sobs into his chest.

"I'm here. I'm here. Don't worry, Katniss. I won't leave you again."

"You won't?" She chokes out.

He knows he can't make any promises.

"I'll try my best."

"Oh, Peeta."

She whispers his name over and over as he wipes the tears from her face. He mumble apologies as she clings to him tighter. He's sorry for leaving her. He's sorry for not being there for her. He's sorry he left her alone for so many nights. He's sorry for letting the Capitol take him from her. He's sorry he murdered the boy she loved. She can't love him now. She can't.

"Stop apologizing. I love you, Peeta, I do. I love you."

She does.


	22. Chapter 22

"Katniss," he starts.

She cuts him off. She doesn't want him to say anything.

"Don't, Peeta. You don't have to say it back. I know how you feel, or how you felt. And I know that you're… confused… as of now. And I know that you probably feel really lost and alone and abandoned, but I want, no, I need you to know that you have me for as long as you'll take me. From here on out, I'll always be here for you."

"Always," he repeats.

"Always," she confirms.

"Go back to sleep, Katniss."

She feels her eyes drooping, but doesn't fade away immediately. Peeta sounds exhausted. She was sleeping blissfully in his arms until the nightmare, but she wonders if she provides the same comfort for him. She thinks of the deep, colored bags under his eyes and wonders if, at this point, anything can help improve his sleeping patterns. She wonders if his nightmares are still about losing her. She wonders if he feels better when he wakes up with her in his arms. He'd always been afraid of losing her. She never thought he'd lose himself instead. She wants to bring him back. She's determined to do it. She needs to do it. That's why she suggested the book. But she needs to be strong enough to do it herself. And she's not. She's the one who fell apart. Not him. Her plan had backfired, and as broken as he is, he ended up putting her back together when she fell apart after trying to memorialize her sister. That isn't an option for tomorrow. She has to do it. She has to be okay. For his sake.

When she wakes up, his blue eyes are staring at her intently.

"You love me. Real or not real?"

"Real."

His body deflates. She can tell he thought it was some kind of weird hallucination. He doesn't say it back. She doesn't need him to. He's not ready.

"Did you sleep?" She asks.

He gives a noncommittal shrug.

"Let's work on the book."

"Katniss…"

"No. I want to try again. Right now. I feel okay. Better than okay."

He sighs.

"I'll make breakfast first," he adds.

So she sits in her kitchen and watches him scramble eggs and toast bread and brew tea. And it's all delicious, but she just wants to start the book. She wants to prove to herself that she can be strong again. But more than anything, she wants to see him draw again.


	23. Chapter 23

He feels her stare. He can't draw with her staring. He feels the pressure of her gaze, of the memories, the expectations, the false hope, all hanging around them like a cloud of smoke threatening to choke him. Eventually, he hears her pencil scratching the paper, indicating that she started to write. He glances at her and remembers what she said last night. She said that she loves him. She told him it was real. She loves him. It was real. That's when it happens. He doesn't know how, but he knows he's recreating Prim's face on the page. He can see her face clearly. He remembers it well. Maybe because she played a huge roll in his treatment in District 13. He doesn't think about it. He just draws. When his hand finally stops moving, the sun is setting and Katniss is staring at his face like she used to when they worked on the plant book. He smiles down at her like a little kid who just did his first finger painting.

"I told you," she says.

He laughs lightly.

"It's beautiful. She's beautiful. Thank you, Peeta."

And then she's crying again and he doesn't know why. Because the pain from losing her sister is still too much? He wants to take it away.

He slides of the couch to where she sits on the floor in front of the coffee table and wraps his arm around her shoulder, thinking about how perfectly she fits into his side.

"I know you miss her, Katniss…"

"No, that's not it. I mean, I do miss her. I miss her every second of every day. I miss her so much it hurts. But you did it, Peeta. You drew just as wonderfully as you used to and you looked so peaceful doing it and the picture is so amazing, so realistic, it's like she's here with us and I'm just… I'm just happy."

"Me too," he says.

"You're happy too?"

"I am."

She smiles and quickly wipes her tears.

"Can you do Rue? I wrote her piece too."

"Sure."

He draws the birdlike girl from District 11 with Katniss nestled against him, occasionally reminding him of a detail here and there. He doesn't remember her face as well as Prim's. It's a little distorted. But with Kantiss' help, he does it.


	24. Chapter 24

The next day, she wakes up feeling well rested for the first time in what seems like years. It probably has been years since she's had a good night sleep. But last night, she fell asleep watching the sunset in Peeta's arms and she didn't wake up until it was rising again. When she opens her eyes, she realizes she's tangled not only in her down comforter, but in Peeta's limbs. She revels in the physical closeness for a moment, enjoying the warmth radiating from the arm he has draped around her hip and the coolness of his metal leg in between both of hers and the rhythmic beats of his heart and the flutters of his eyelashes. Then, she tries to extract herself from the bed without disturbing him. She fails, and he wakes peacefully too. He stretches his limbs and yawns in a way that reminds her of Buttercup, except for the fact that Buttercup is hideous and mangled and Peeta is beautiful.

"I'm going hunting," she tells him.

He smiles, really smiles, and gets out of bed.

"I'm going home to shower and change," he tells her.

She nods, and when she's finished getting ready to take to the woods, she kisses him on the cheek before leaving.

It is completely by chance that she shoots down the large deer later that day. She makes her way to the woods slowly, finally settling in the nook of rocks where she and Gale used to meet. She sits down by force of habit. She loses her motivation. Nevertheless, the deer wanders right into her field of vision and starts to graze. She shoots it down mechanically, and suddenly, she's filled with a strange rush of adrenaline. She doesn't feel week. She doesn't feel tired. She feels motivated. She feels like she can carry the weight of the world. Well, maybe not the weight of the world, but the weight of the deer. And carry it she does. She drags it back home, whistling _The Hanging Tree_ the entire way. She's happy. She's smiling. She wants to see Peeta, to show him she can still hunt, to share her happiness with him. She doesn't think when she walks into his house, coated in dirt and sweat. Coated in blood.

He's rummaging through his pantry when she steps into the kitchen. She calls his name. He steps out, and it takes all of two seconds for the transformation to happen. She gets wrapped up in how quickly the color of his eyes change and his glowing smile turns into a grimace. She loses time and he manages to throw a hard punch to her cheekbone, knocking her off balance and sending her tumbling to the ground. He pounces on top of her, but she has the wherewithal to draw her knees to her chest and get her feet on his stomach, pushing him off of her and on to the floor at her side. She knows she has no time. She knows exactly what she's done to him. She's quick in rolling out of his reach and standing up, but at the last second, he manages to get a hold on her arm. He digs his fingernails deep into her flesh, drawing long stripes of blood down the tender inside of her forearm. She's silent, not wanting to provoke him any more, but when he gets to his feet again, he's finally found his voice.

"Mutt! You're a mutt! You're a murderer!"

His ability to form sentences declines as his madness increases, and he's reduced to incomprehensible screams and grunts. He lunges at her, but she's quick to dodge him this time. She recognizes her lead and sprints to grab one of his kitchen stools. He advances on her and she brandishes the wooden legs at him, but she knows she'll never swing.

"Peeta," she pleads.

Her efforts to reason with him will be futile this time, she knows. She knows she's about to get what she deserves. She goes limp and allows him to wrench the stool from her grasp. He puts it to use, smacking her in the side and sending her flying into the metal refrigerator door. Now, her whole middle section is on fire and she can tell she'll be bruised there for weeks. She whimpers slightly on the floor and tries not to resist him, but her survival instincts kick in as she rolls to avoid his lunge. He catches her in the hip with his foot and she lets out a small scream. He kicks her a couple more times in the side as she scrambles to get away, but he's knocked the breath out of her and all she manages to do is send a stack of pots and pans crashing to the floor when she tries to pull herself up using the ledge of the counter. Then, he has her in a headlock, and she doesn't know why, but she's screaming bloody murder right along with him.

Maybe it was Peeta's grunts, or the sound of the cookware hitting the tile floor, or her own screams, but the noise must have caught Haymitch's attention, because the next thing she knows he's there, slamming Peeta into the wall and forcing him to loosen his grip on her. Haymitch has his surprisingly strong forearm up against Peeta's throat, cutting off his airway so that he can't move.

"Haymitch!" She shouts.

"Shut up, Katniss, get out of here."

He speaks to her, but doesn't take his eyes off of Peeta, who's fighting for air and slowly sinking to the ground. Haymitch lets him fall and kneels down with him, keeping pressure on his wind pipe.

"What the hell are you doing, shithead!? You stay away from her if you can't control yourself!"

"Haymitch! Leave him alone! It was my fault!"

He lets Peeta go, and the boy fights to regain his breath, still slumped against the wall.

"Your fault!? How could you say that! Look at yourself!"

"The blood is from a deer I killed."

"You came over here looking like that? Are you insane?"

"I know…"

Peeta catches them by surprise, suddenly getting to his feet and seizing Katniss' upper arm with all his strength. He has a kitchen knife in his other hand and she can't figure out how he managed to get it without either of them noticing. He swings at her with the knife, aiming for her throat, but she ducks and he nicks her forehead right where Clove did in the first Games. He makes another attempt with the knife, this time coming dangerously close to her neck but slicing her shoulder instead. He lets out a frustrated scream and drops the knife, throwing a punch to her jaw and grabbing her by the neck and squeezing. Then, Haymitch is raising the discarded stool, and before she can protest, he smashes it down on Peeta's head.

Peeta crumples to the floor and Katniss screams, falling on top of him. Haymitch lets out a long whistle. This annoys her beyond belief. She glares at him, but he speaks gently.

"Go get cleaned up, sweetheart."

She doesn't move. She can't leave Peeta.

"I'll watch him," Haymitch says.

"Fine."

She sprint to her house and changes out of the bloody clothes, but that's all. She doesn't shower before she runs back across the yard. Haymitch is already leaving.

"Boy's fine," he tells her as she runs past.

She knows better than to believe him. He's not fine. And it's all her fault. She did this to him. She's the reason the Capitol captured him, tortured him, hijacked him. She's the reason he has an episode today. She's so stupid, so careless, and he's paying for her ignorant actions. She'll never forgive herself.


	25. Chapter 25

He can't believe what he did to her. She bursts through the door again, breathless, and he loses the will to live. She's bleeding heavily from three different places. Her eye is swollen shut and already bruised, as is her jawbone. He can tell from the unnatural way she walks over to him that he probably did damage to her ribs too. He's still on the floor and he tries to stand to escape her, to protect her, but he knows that after a particularly violent episode his body hurts more than his mind. His limbs aren't working properly and he crumbles when he tries to move.

"Peeta," she says so softly its almost a whisper.

"Katniss," he whines. "Why did you come back? Look what I've done to you. We can't keep doing this, Katniss. I can't stop hurting you and it's killing me."

She's closer now, standing over him and gazing intently into his eyes.

"No," she says. "This wasn't your fault, Peeta. I did this. I shot a deer and I was just excited about it and I wanted to show you so I came over here but the blood was all over me and, oh, Peeta, it was so stupid of me and I set you off and I deserved everything that happened after because look at you! Look at yourself! I did this! This never would have happened if I wasn't the goddamned mockingjay!"

She's gasping for air now, pulling it in with long, hard drags.

"Breathe, Katniss," he tells her.

She collapses to her knees beside him and he's afraid to touch her, afraid he'll bruise her and break her again. She's mumbling incoherently now and he knows he's losing her. He forces himself to find the words.

"How could you blame yourself for this, Katniss? I couldn't control myself, can never control myself. And you, you've been so strong and helpful and kind to me even though I don't deserve it, even though I keep hurting you."

She's stopped mumbling to herself and tears are leaking slowly down her black and blue cheeks. And he caused it. He caused all of this. How could he have done this? How could he have broken her, Katniss Everdeen, his Katniss Everdeen, who was once so strong? He feels her next to him, seeking comfort, seeking his comfort, even though he damn near killed her minutes ago. He thinks she must be as mad as he is when she crawls into his lap and tucks her head into his shoulder. She's shaking on top of him but he's more steady now, so he lifts her up and carries her out of the wreckage in his kitchen and onto the couch where he usually sleeps. He deposits her there and she's still not coming back to him, she's just staring off into space like Annie Cresta used to. He gets a washcloth from the bathroom and wets it with warm water. Then, he uses it to clean her wounds, wounds he made. He finds his medical kit and digs out the gauze, wrapping it up and down her forearm and her forehead and around her shoulder.

"Katniss?" He asks.

She's still not responsive. He sighs and makes his way back to the kitchen. He cleans up the site of the disaster, restacking pots and pans, discarding the broken stool, mopping away the blood. He cleans until the kitchen shines, and then he cleans the rest of his dusty house, and the sun is setting by the time he rejoins her on the couch, sweaty and exhausted.

"You need to come back to me, love."

He doesn't even register the term of endearment that tumbles carelessly from his lips. He kneels in front of her and gently takes the uninjured side of her jaw in his had. Her eyes find his and she wakes up a little.

"Peeta?" She asks.

Its like she's not really sure of his identity. She sounds confused and small, and it scares him to see her this way because its so unlike her, but he forces himself to stay with her. He owes it to her to bring her back, to make sure she's safe, because after all this, after all he's done, he's still trying to protect her.

"Your eyes are so blue. So pretty."

Her voice quivers and again he's reminded of Annie Cresta and the way she sometimes speaks in fragmented sentences that don't seem to make sense, but that Finnick usually understands. Understood.

"Okay, Katniss," he coos.

And then she's launching herself at him, wrapping her arms around his shoulders and holding fast and sending him stumbling back a few steps.

"Don't leave me," she starts to sob, and he understands where her fit of depression came from. Him. Again. In a way he understands. Losing him. She's so afraid of losing him, even though he hurts her and he's bad for her and she deserves better. He used to be afraid of losing her. So afraid that it would paralyze him. He's still afraid of losing her. Afraid that she'll run away or off herself or that he'll do it for her. He used to love her, before the Capitol took that away, took him away, turned him against her. But they didn't. Because he's still here and so is she. And she's so close to him and he feels okay. Because he still loves her. He knows its true. And he knows he needs to tell her.

"I won't, Katniss."

And she's still sobbing and begging him to stay with her, and he says "Always," and she hiccups a little and tries to stop crying, but she's still clinging to him for dear life like she doesn't quite believe that always is still a promise for them. And he realizes that he might not have been so convincing. So he tells her.

"I love you."

She cries harder, holds him tighter.

"I love you I love you I love you I love you."

He's making a new promise. A promise to the both of them. One that means he's going to get better for her, that he knows no amount of tracker jacker venom can change who he is, because he is his love for her and he never stopped loving her and he will love her every day for as long as he lives.

"I love you, and I'll be better for you."

It's the only way he can be okay again. For her. He clings to it like she clings to him. She pushes back from him ever so slightly, just enough to look into his eyes. Their noses touch and he wraps his arms around her waist. She relaxes into him and their foreheads touch. They stay that way until it's dark.


	26. Chapter 26

When she wakes up, she feels like shit, but not in the way she's used to. Her body hurts, but her mind doesn't. She's in Peeta's bed. He stayed with her. He told her he loves her. He came back to her. He is hers. She is his. She needs him to know. She needs him. She wakes him up by boldly peppering kisses along his jawline, but avoiding his lips.

"Mmm, Katniss," he moans, still half asleep.

She clenches her thighs together as an unfamiliar warmth gathers between her legs. She composes herself before waking him up in earnest.

"Morning, love," he says.

"Morning, Peeta."

He smiles that beautiful, sparkling smile, and she feels alright. She feels like everything will be okay again.

"You're mine," she tells him. "And I'm yours."

"How is this real?" He asks.

"It was always going to be like this, Peeta. It was always going to be you and me."

He takes her hand in his. That's all. He doesn't kiss her or pull her close or touch her where she wants him to touch her. But its okay. She'll wait for him. She tries to take in a deep breath of the morning air coming in from the open window, but her ribs catch fire and she gasps. The adrenaline from yesterday is gone. She feels the pain of her wounds. Wounds Peeta will blame himself for. Peeta is up in an instant.

"What's wrong?"

She hesitates and tries to sit up, but it hurts too much. A few traitorous tears leak out of her clenched eyelids.

"It's… um… It's my ribs. I think they're bruised… or something… from yesterday."

He's silent.

"Peeta. I don't want you to go. Don't go. I love you, remember? You didn't do this to me. It's okay. Please don't blame yourself."

"I love you, too. So much. And I just want to do right by you and I don't want to leave you and I don't want to blame myself, but Katniss, I did this to you, I left all those marks…"

"No, Peeta, you didn't. That wasn't you, yesterday. This is you, here with me now. This is the real you, the one that would never, ever hurt me. I know that. I trust you. I'm not afraid of you."

She steels herself even though she's in pain.

"You should be."

"I'm not."

He must recognize that this is a losing battle, because he gives in.

"Let's check out your ribs, okay?"

She nods. Then, he slowly reaches out a hand to lift the hem of her shirt. The flesh underneath is a smorgasbord of bruises, black and blue and green and yellow. They both gasp a little.

"It hurts a lot?" He asks.

She nods.

"I should get someone. Haymitch. I'll be back."

Before she can protest, he's out the door, and she's letting herself cry just to get the tears out before he comes back. When he returns, he has a grumpy Haymitch with him and she's mostly dried out.

"What, now that you two are coming out of hibernation you think you have me at your beck and call? I'm not a doctor, sweetheart."

"Get Sae, then," she grinds out. "She knows her stuff."

"There's an idea."

Haymitch leaves without any further conversation. She assumes he'll go get Sae, but with Haymitch, she's never sure of his intentions.

Peeta sinks back down onto his bed.

"I'm sorry."

"Stop."

"But…"

"Shut up."

"Ka…"

"Peeta Mellark, you shit, shut your mouth right now or I'll fucking do it for you."

"You can't move."

"I'll find it in me."

She scowls at him and then he's laughing, and she's joining him, and they're laughing together, and she's laughing so hard that it hurts her ribs and she has to stop.

"We're pretty fucked up, aren't we, love?"

"We'll get through it. It'll be easier now."

"Promise?" He asks.

"Promise."

"You'll stay with me?"

"Always."

He lies down next to her again.

"We'll be okay," she tells him.

"I love you."

"I love you too."

They stare at the ceiling, feeling okay, until Haymitch reenters with Sae.

Sae doesn't ask questions, just helps Katniss sit up and lifts up her shirt. After probing around a little, she determines that nothing is broken. Katniss hears Peeta audibly sigh with relief. She smiles at him. He returns it.

"Bed rest for a couple days. Don't push it, Katniss. You should be back to normal soon, but if not, call for me again and we'll get you a real doctor. And Peeta?"

He raises his head.

"Take care of her."


	27. Chapter 27

For the next couple of days, he takes care of her while she's confined to his bed. He bakes her cheese buns and keeps her cuts clean and they work on the memory book together. And just like Sae predicted, her ribs were only badly bruised, not broken. She's back hunting again in two days, ignoring Sae's advice to not "push it." When she brings back a belt full of squirrels, there's no blood and no flashback. Just a delicious meal.

He holds on to her promises and reassurances. He holds on to her love for him and his love for her. He has something to hold on to. He is no longer falling. He's been baking more. Its therapeutic. He bakes for Katniss, for Haymitch, for Sae and her family, but he knows he has more than enough baked goods for all of them. He knows there are hungry workers and refugees and returning residents who would willingly accept food donations, but he can't bring himself to make the short trek into town. Not many people know what happened to him. They know him as he was before he was a tribute, before he was a victor, before he was a volunteer, before he was a prisoner, before he was a rebel, before he was a mutt. Before he was fucked up. He won't admit it to Katniss, but that's why he doesn't plan to venture out and interact with the rest of the district any time soon. He wants to leave them with the image of him as he was, not as he is now. He knows he's being selfish. He knows Katniss is itching to get him to come outside with her. She's hinted at it to him more than once, but he's brushed her off. He is genuinely happy that she's getting back into a routine that involves socializing with the other residents of Twelve, and he doesn't want to hold her back if she's ready to move forward, but he can't take that step with her. It hurts him to think about it to much. He used to be such a people person. But now, he can only find it in him to smile at Katniss. And he thought her smiles were hard to come buy. He supposes the tables have turned.

He's sketching on the porch as the sun sets behind his house when she finally appears on the path leading into the Victors Village. She smiles at him and lets herself into his house without a word.

"Hey!" He calls.

Her head pops back out from around the door frame.

"You have a house too, you know."

She scowls at his comment, but then he flashes her a smile and she relaxes and plops herself down next to him.

"Yeah, I know, I just like yours better," she says, resting her head on his shoulder.

"Then move in," he says, mostly kidding.

"Can I?"

"Seriously?"

He's incredulous. She wants to live with him? She can't. But she's nodding. She does. He smiles again and kisses her gently, just barely grazing her lips with his own. And it isn't a desperate kiss that feels wet with tears and heavy with sadness, but a sweet one, one that tastes like happiness and the night sky. She moans when he pulls away and they're left in a peaceful silence. He resumes sketching. He's lost in the drawing until Katniss breaks his trance.

"Peeta?"

"Mmh?"

He puts his pencil down and looks at Katniss, who's worrying her lower lip with her teeth.

"Is something wrong?" He asks.

"Come into town with me tomorrow," she blurts out.

He groans.

"Katniss, I've told you before that I won't."

"Why not?" She questions, voice thick with aggression.

She's looking for a fight. Part of him is scared of his other half, but the part that remembers Katniss as she was before the war feels alive. She's fiery, always has been. He likes it, always has liked it. It's familiar.

"I just… can't. Not yet."

"You have to do better than that, Mellark." He scoffs at her use of his surname. "I need a real reason."

She's pushing. He feels it. He's quite.

"If you can't give me a reason, you're coming. You can't just shut yourself in this house forever. Stop being such a coward, Peeta."

And just like that, he's thrown back in time, but he knows this is a real memory, nothing shiny about it.

_Stop being such a coward, Peeta._

But it's not Katniss yelling at him, it's his mother. Something that feels like the tracker jacker venom flares inside of him, but it can't be the poison. He's fully aware. He's not scared or threatened. He's just… angry.

"I am not a coward! Yeah, I'm afraid, but don't you dare call me a coward! I have every right to be afraid! Of course I don't want to put myself into a mass group of people! So would you just let it go, Katniss!? I don't need this from you, so just keep your mouth shut for once in your life!"

She jumps to her feet, yelling, "I won't! I won't shut my mouth, Peeta, and I won't let you sit in here and rot because you're afraid of what people might think of you, because you're afraid that someone somewhere might not like you now! I like you! Is that not enough!?"

"It's not just that!" He shouts, advancing on her until she backs up into the house. "What if I hurt someone, Katniss, hm? What then? Is that what you want? Is that why you keep pushing me? It's like you want me to fuck up!" He slams the door and tugs at the roots of his hair, when really, it's her hair that he wants to pull.

"Of course I don't want you to fuck up!"

Her voice is inhumanely loud, rising from a frustrated shout to an animalistic shriek.

"Then leave me the hell alone, Katniss! What the fuck do you want with me, anyway!? What are you doing here?"

She's silent for beat, and he thinks that she's done shrieking, but he's wrong. She throws her head back and practically roars into the ceiling. Then, she sets her fiery gaze on him and says, "Fuck you, Peeta Mellark."

"No, fuck you!" He yells.

And then he's pinned against his door, held in place by her small, sinewy arms, and she's kissing him so ferociously that he can feel her everywhere, inside and out, like she's dragging him into the fire with her.


	28. Chapter 28

She attacks his mouth with her tongue and he fights back, practically shoving her down on the couch. She loses her grip on him but quickly retaliates, grabbing the front of his shirt and pulling him down to her, locking on to his lips again. He moves in time with her body, picking up pace, grinding his hips into hers.

Then he weaves his fingers into her hair. She thinks he's being tender, which frustrates her because she hates him so much right now. She stills and almost detaches herself from his mouth, but soon becomes glad she didn't.

He tugs hard at the roots of her hair, yanking her head back and sending a jolt of electricity straight to her core. She moves her body more fiercely against his, not really knowing what she's doing, only knowing that she wants the friction, she needs it. His grip on her scalp tightens and then he's latching his lips onto her neck, biting and sucking the tender flesh there. She's never felt more alive in her entire life and she can't suppress the groan of pleasure that escapes her lips.

"Shut the fuck up, Everdeen."

His voice is deeper and darker than she's ever heard it and she swears her body heats up a few degrees.

"W…what?"

"I said, shut that fucking mouth or we'll have a problem."

For a second, she considers the possibility that he's having a flashback, which is why she bothers to take the time to look into his eyes. They're perfectly blue, which makes her feel much better about the fact that she's never been so turned on in her entire life.

"What kind of problem, Mellark?"

His lips form a snarl as he slowly digs his nails into her thigh and rakes them up her skin until he reaches her ass. He smacks her, hard, but she wants more. She eggs him on.

"I guess I always have been kind of a… trouble maker."

"You're such a fucking problem, Everdeen."

They lock eyes again and she catches a slight smile on his red lips, which he quickly suppresses to resume his assault on her neck. He rakes his nails up and down her body, stimulating all her nerves, making her squirm.

She feels bold and filled with adrenaline, so she reaches down and grabs the bulge in his pants. He reacts harshly, bitting her lip so hard he draws blood they can both taste. He freezes and pushes her off, and she thinks she might have set him off again, but he isn't showing any signs of a flashback. In fact, he's alert and his eyes are wide open and he feels very much like himself, physically at least, solid there beneath her. Mentally, she has no idea where he is.

"Katniss, are you okay? Did I hurt you? I'm so sorry! I got carried away and oh…"

She silences him with a soft kiss.

"Fuck, look at you."

She knows her body is scratched and she must have marks all over her neck and shoulders, but she feels great, she feels alive.

"I hurt you again, Katniss. I wasn't even having a flashback. It was like… I don't even know… I don't know what got into me! I shouldn't have…"

She leans down and whispers in his ear, speaking each word with a careful deliberation.

"I. Liked. It."


	29. Chapter 29

"I. Liked. It."

He's so confused, but hyperaware of his surroundings at the same time. His thoughts aren't shiny, they're just jumbled. How can he hate this woman and love her so much at the same time? Old Peeta never would have retaliated, never would have yelled at her, never would have let their fight affect him physically. But New Peeta, the one who's pretty fucked up, he got high on her screams and turned on by the hatred in her eyes. And. She. Liked. It.

"You did?"

She bites her lip, which does nothing to help settle his erection.

"Is that really fucked up?"

Knowing Katniss, he's aware that on a physiological level, for her, it probably isn't a good sign. He's afraid that he'll want to hurt her. He's afraid she wants to hurt herself. But he feels stable and she's smiling at him and the sun is shining and he can feel the breeze through the windows, so he just says, "I could use some new things…"

She cocks her head. He stumbles on.

"Well, I kind of trashed my painting stuff at one point. And I could always make do with more baking supplies. Maybe some new clothes…"

She's incredulous.

"You'll come out with me?"

Her smile is so rare, but so infectious. He smiles and nods, and she takes his hand and pulls him right out the door. And even though he knows it's almost dark and the vendors will be closing, he allows her to tow him along anyway.

He lets her drag him mindlessly for a while, filling all the silent gaps with words where he should have been talking, would have been talking. But as they get closer and closer to town, his heart rate picks up dangerously fast. He's nervous, he tells himself. He'll be fine, he tells himself. But when he starts gasping for air, she notices, and he doesn't feel fine anymore.

"Are you having a flashback?"

His vision goes blurry around the edges.

_No._

But he can't reply.

_Help._

Something bad is going to happen. He knows it.

_Panic attack._

The term nips at the back of his mind. Dr. Aurelius used it a couple of times. Different from a flashback. Not fear conditioning. Just anxiety. He's anxious about going into town? His old home. His fallen kingdom. He absolutely hates himself for failing to be the person he once was. But now this is the place where his family died. And he swears he can feel the ground beneath his feet shaking and he can hear the bombers above his head as the temperature rises.

"Peeta. Peeta."

She's whispering in his ear. He feels it before he hears it. Then he feels her palm slip into his, and all the horrors fall away. Well, some of them, at least.

"I really hate myself," he tells her matter-of-factly.

"I'm sorry," she says. "Let's go home."

"No… I…It was just a panic attack…"

"Let's go home. We should talk."

He silently consents and holds her hand the whole way back to his house, still hating himself, still wishing he was someone else. The sky fades to black as they make their way home. He thought he was going to be okay again. He was lying to himself.

Once they're inside, he turns on the lights and sits on the sofa and she perches on the coffee table in front of him, legs crossed, elbows on her knees.

"I tried to kill myself multiple times before you came back."

He knows, but he's still taken back.

He says her name and reaches for her, but she stops him.

"No. I need to say this. No more secrets. Not for me, at least. Feel free to speak as much or as little as you'd like, but I want you to know that I'm in this for the long run. I love you, and I'm yours for as long as you'll have me. I mean it, Peeta. Always."

He nods. "Always."

"So. When I came back to 12, I thought it was too late for me. I thought I was a lost cause. I mean, I had absolutely no one left. My father is dead. Prim is dead. My mom is in 4. Gale is in 2. And you, you were in the Capitol, and I thought I'd never see you again. I thought you were gone for good. For all I knew, you'd never be able to look at me again without wanting to wring my neck."

His eyes flit to the faint ribbon scars around her neck, and he knows he'll never forgive himself for that attack.

"So I tried to end it. And one day, after I'd swallowed half a bottle of pills, I woke up to Haymitch sitting in a chair across from my bed, saying some shit about how I don't deserve you, which was nothing I hadn't heard before.

But then, I told him that I thought you were gone for good, lost to the hijacking, and he said 'almost.' I can't tell you what that word did to me. Because you used to be the boy with the bread, my dandelion in the spring, this amazing man who was just always there, loving me, convincing me that we were gonna be okay no matter what. And then you just weren't any of that anymore, and it broke my heart more than I ever thought I would admit.

You hated me, and even though I know it was mostly because of the hijacking, it wasn't all without just cause. I'm not a good person, Peeta. But you, you're the best kind of person. And until Haymitch said that word, you'd become just some sort of concept to me, so beyond my reach. But then, I figured that if I learned one thing from you, Peeta Mellark, it's that no one can be broken beyond repair. I mean, I was still convinced that I was, but I thought I owed it to you to try and fix you, or whatever.

So I told myself that I was doing you a favor, that I felt guilty, but the truth is, when I showed up at your house that day, I was just missing you so much, and I thought that you'd be okay, and you'd hold me and tell me you missed me too. But then you were there, and you just… you looked like the walking dead, and you didn't speak more than two sentences to me, and I couldn't handle it. So I ran, like I always do, and of-fucking-course, who else would find me and bring me back to life other than Peeta Mellark himself?

After that, when I went over to your house and you were sick and alone while I had Haymitch and Sae taking care of me, I don't know, I felt like I had to, no, wanted to dedicate myself to you, and I felt whole again.

But I was still trying to stop myself from falling in love with you, which was stupid, because I guess I was right about one thing from the start. It was too late for me. Too late for me to forget about you. Too late to chalk up my attachment to guilt and owed favors. I've loved you through it all, and I guess what I'm trying to say is that I'd do the past few years all over again if I still got to come out the other side with you. And no matter what you think of yourself, I'll always love you, even if you're a little different now. Because I know you've really been struggling, and you've been trying to keep it from me, but you can't, and I really want to help you get better, not because I feel responsible, but because I love you and I'd do anything in the world to make you happy, because you make me happy by just being around."


	30. Chapter 30

He's floored by her speech, and he can't go another second letting her think he wants to hide anything from her.

"Katniss, I need you to know that my feelings for you have not changed since I was five years old. I may have forgotten, and then I may have become less vocal about it, but for the past thirteen years of my life, you have consumed each and every one of my thoughts. Even when I came back home I thought about you every day, but I was just so incredibly confused.

I hated you, but I knew that was impossible. I wanted you, but I knew I didn't deserve you. I was so afraid of hurting you, I still am, that I convinced myself that you'd be safer if I stayed away. I still think that's true, but I know how stubborn you are, so I let you make your own decisions. When you started hanging around me again, I was still confused, but I knew that I wanted to figure myself out for you.

It's been harder than I thought it would be. At first, some days, I couldn't remember anything. Not my age, not my old address, not how to bake or paint or tie my shoes. But that stuff, the easy stuff, it all started coming back eventually. Some other things are harder, like my family. In the Capitol…"

He chokes on his words so literally that he has to gasp for air. She moves from her perch on the table to press her body into his side. He's never talked about this before, never mentioned it to a soul, except a small number of his doctors, what exactly they did to him in the Capitol. The words don't come out willingly, but he forces them up from his stomach, to his throat, out in Katniss's direction, because she told him everything and he wants to do the same.

"I watched people I know get tortured, then killed. Old friends from 12. My prep team from the Capitol. All dead right in front of my eyes. I watched… I watched 12 burn. I watched by family burn. I thought it was your fault. After they hurt someone in front of me, they'd inject me with the venom and I'd hallucinate you doing it. After I watch the bombing of 12 played back, I got the venom, and saw you laughing as my family screamed. They'd show me videos of you, I'm still not sure if they were altered or not, but I'm sure I got the venom, and all I knew was that I needed to kill you. Electric shocks, venom. Blades, venom. Water, venom. It was physical and mental, what they did to me. But it was all about you.

I was programmed to hate you, and I know now that I could never stop loving you, but I still can't tell what's real and what isn't. I still can't tell if I miss my mother or if I'm glad she's gone for good. I still have flashbacks and panic attacks and phantom pains in my leg, and for the first time, I'm not sure if I can recover. I'm not sure if I'll be okay again. That's the truth, Katniss. I'm not who I used to be. Walking back in to that town… with all those people…. it hurts to think that I don't want to talk to them, that I'll have to force all my smiles, because I've changed. And it's killing me, but I don't want to let it. That's also the truth. I want to believe that life can be good again. I want to make you believe it. I want to heal. I want you to heal. I want to heal together. And I think we might be, and I can't thank you enough for staying with me, because I honestly don't think I'd be alive right now if it weren't for you, Katniss Everdeen, love of my life. I will keep living, keep trying, all because of you. I have nothing else. You're it, but you're more than enough."

That night, they play Real or Not Real on the sofa in the dark. His questions horrify her, but she finally answers. And when he's done interrogating her about all the horrible things she's done, in his Other mind and in reality, she interrogates him right back. Sometime during their game, her hands made their way under his shirt and started tracing patterns on his scarred abdomen. She takes off his shirt completely and questions him. Freckle? Birthmark? Skin graft? Mother? Capitol? She starts crying softly into his chest after a particularly horrifying string of stories about some burn marks and lacerations on his back acquired in the Capitol. He was tortured. It all seems so real to her now. When he's not paying attention, he can still paint vivid pictures with his words. He's been tortured his whole life. It's a miracle he made it this far without completely losing it on his own. So strong, she thinks, although he seems fragile now, shaking slightly in her arms. He won't answer her questions after she starts crying, but he does kiss her delicately, pressing his bare chest into hers. She takes off her shirt, slowly, self consciously, revealing herself to him in the dim light. Her nipples harden from the cold air and he collects her in his arms, kissing her all over, massaging her breasts in his palms, eliciting moans of pleasure from her.

They fall asleep shirtless on the couch, their scarred chests pressed so tightly together that their hearts beat in perfect synchronization.


	31. Chapter 31

She wakes up to him mumbling. She's always been the one to wake him up in the middle of the night, but he's not screaming, he's not even moving, so she doesn't think anything of the sleep talking. In fact, she smiles a little, finding the quirk endearing.

"Please stop."

He's speaking softly. His nightmares are different from her's, but there's no mistaking that tone. She knows he's scared.

"No more venom. Please! Please! Please not the needle!"

His hands twitch slightly at his sides and she grabs them in her own. They're hot with sweat. He falls back into mumbling incoherently, but his face is still twisted in anguish.

"Peeta," she whispers.

His eyelids flutter and she kisses them lightly, making her way down to his lips. He's awake by the time she gets there, kissing her back and wrapping her up in his arms. She hugs him back.

"Hey," he says.

"Hey," she smiles up at him.

"Everything okay?"

"You were talking in your sleep."

He freezes. She knows he remembers the dream. He quickly regains his composure.

"I love you a lot, Katniss Everdeen."

"I love you too, Peeta Mellark."

He drifts back off to sleep with her lying directly on top of him and doesn't wake up until the sun shines through the windows. When it does, he feels rejuvenated. He feels a thousand things. Good things. He feels better. She's still sleeping like a rock, pressed into his chest. He's reluctant to wake her, but also anxious to start the day. By the time he's decided it's time for her to get up, her grey eyes are already staring into his blue ones. In this moment, with the sun streaming in behind her, illuminating her bed head and creased cheeks and slow blinking eyes, he's struck by how young she is. How young they both are. Just barely eighteen. Now past reaping age.

"What are you thinking about?" She asks.

"You. How beautiful you are. How lucky I am to have you."

"Peeta, I'm not beautiful."

"You are."

"I'm burned."

She's still self conscious about her fire mutt body, and he's reminded again that they're just teenagers.

He shrugs and says, "Me too."

She shrugs back and kisses him hard. He responds with his tongue and they kiss sloppily, full of lust and want, like normal teenagers. They can be normal. They can be okay. He feels it in his bones.

"Let's go out," he says, abruptly breaking the kiss.

"Peeta… Are you sure?"

"Yeah. I want to try again."

So they go out. They make it out of the Victor's Village. They take the long way, and they make it through the Seam on the edge of 12 where she used to live. They make it to the town in the center of 12 where he used to live. It's relatively rebuilt and repopulated and it's home. They buy groceries and other essentials. He's giddy when he buys all new art supplies and she salivates over her lunch with a smile. They hold hands. No one stares… that much. They have a normal day. On the way home, he drops her hand to pick a yellow dandelion he spotted growing in the cracks of the cobblestones. She tucks it behind her ear and she looks so beautiful that he can't resist kissing her, smiling against her mouth, feeling her smiling too. He knows life can go on, no matter how bad their losses. It can be good again. It will be. It's not too late.


	32. Chapter 32

That day hardens both of their resolves to live better, to live for those they lost. When they return home to prepare dinner, Katniss has the idea of inviting Haymitch over to eat. So, they prepare a meal for three and then cross the lawn to retrieve him. He takes some convincing, and he's abrasive as usual at first, but eventually they get him to join. And then it becomes a regular occurrence, them sharing meals together. And it's somewhat normal. Somewhat. There are some nights when Haymitch doesn't join them, passed out on his couch or kitchen table. Other nights, he and Katniss fight about odd topics that usually go over Peeta's head. Peeta's stopped caring. They're so similar, Katniss and Haymitch, and he's given up trying to understand their shorthand. More often than he'd like, Peeta exits the conversation unwillingly, gripping the table in an attempt to ward off a flashback. Usually, Katniss can silence the evil thing inside of him with a few words, caresses, or kisses when they're alone.

Apart from their dinners, they all fall into some other sort of routine to help pass the days. Haymitch starts raising geese. Katniss redevelops a regular hunting routine, bringing in enough meat for the three of them, plus Greasy Sae and the butcher, from whom she refuses to accept payment. Peeta takes up painting regularly again, and he slowly begins to refill the cache of artwork scattered around his house. One day, he decides to redo his art room, since he rarely destroys things anymore, even if he does have to lock himself in occasionally when Katniss fails to stop a flashback after her first few attempts. This is what she finds him doing one hot, summer afternoon when she comes home from her hunt. He's re-stacking boxes, and she's momentarily mesmerized by the way his muscles contract under his shirt when he lifts them.

"You should join the work crews," she blurts out.

He jumps a little, but smiles when he turns to face her. He crosses the room and kisses her hello, but essentially ignores her suggestion. He's definitely more comfortable going into town now, but he still tries to avoid too many intimate interactions, as they're often painful and draining.

"Why don't you help me clean up?" He asks.

She does, and they scrub the room and reorganize his art supplies in comfortable silence. She doesn't bring it up again until they're halfway through dinner with Haymitch.

"So, today Thom told me that he's really short on people in his crews."

Peeta and Haymitch both look up from their plates.

"I thought you might want to join, Peeta."

She hesitates, reconsidering something.

"Actually, maybe we both should. It could be good, you know, to do some more physical labor? Give us something else to do during the days. Dr. Aurelius would be happy to hear we've added something else to our regular routines. And I think it would feel good… doing something useful again."

Peeta glances at Haymitch, who's in a good mood tonight, as a fresh shipment of alcohol arrived on the train today.

"I don't see why not, Katniss," the older man says. "Seems like a good idea to me."

Peeta takes a moment to think this over, and then nods his head.

"Sure. If it'll help 12 get back on its feet again. Yeah. I think we should. Good idea, Katniss. We'll go talk to Thom first thing tomorrow."

Katniss nods her agreement as she and Peeta start to clear the dishes and Haymitch makes his exit. They go to bed early, vowing to start re-assimilating with their district the next day.


	33. Chapter 33

**AN: Get ready for frequent updates to _Medicine _because I'm done with finals and home for winter break! My goal is to post a chapter a day until the very end. That being said, please excuse any grammatical errors. I don't have a beta, and it's hard for me to catch all errors the same day I write the chapter. I've gone back over the whole thing many times to edit, so hopefully if you're a new reader (welcome!) you won't have to see as many of my grammatical screw ups. Also, I know the chapters are short, but that was always my intention for this story. Something a little different. Hope you enjoy :)**

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Peeta can't sleep that night. It's one of those nights when unconsciousness is simply impossible. Between the hot mid-summer air and the anticipation of setting out to rebuild District 12 tomorrow and Katniss's lumpy presence curled into his side (although asleep, she takes up about as much space on the bed as the cat), he's restless. Oh yeah, the cat is also scratching at their door.

He rolls out of bed, careful not to wake Katniss, who seems to be sleeping soundly, and goes downstairs to let in Buttercup. He's always liked animals, and he knows that since she's been back, Katniss has developed a sort of alliance with Prim's pet. He pours some milk from the fridge in a bowl and places it on the floor. When Buttercup immediately starts lapping it up, he pads back up the stairs and into the art studio.

Buttercup's appearance has dredged up memories of Prim, and he's discovered that whenever he gets an image in his mind that just won't seem to leave, it's best to paint it out. It's a coping method he learned all by himself, without any God forsaken doctors or medications or hallucinogenics. Sometimes, the images are real memories, and he's glad he paints them out because they're little details that he never wants to forget again. Usually, when these memories come, they come by the bucket load, minute instances of his life flooding back all at once, like random pieces of a puzzle. More often than not, the memories are false. But when he puts them on a canvas, he's not confused by them. For the first time, he can tell exactly what's real and what isn't.

The trouble is, the flashbacks don't always come peacefully. Sometimes they hit so fast he has no chance of making it anywhere near his paints. Sometimes he already has a brush in hand when he's assaulted, but he'll be shaking too bad to paint anything coherent. It frustrates him that he's still so unstable, but he knows that without help from the advanced doctors in the Capitol, he'll likely never fully overcome the hijacking. But he has his art, and baking helps calm him down, and Katniss's presence in their home makes everything feel okay. He knows now that he can rely on her for absolutely anything. He's even come to trust Haymitch again, who can usually be depended on to play Real or Not Real when he's drunk enough, and who's always willing to restrain Peeta by any means possible when Katniss is too reluctant. Which is always.

She's confident he won't hurt her, and he hasn't since the incident many weeks ago, but he needs to be completely sure that he won't so much as lay a hand on her when the venom takes over. Haymitch usually just ties him to a chair or locks him in the studio if he's too insane to do it himself, but sometimes he has to be knocked out still. When he comes to, it's always with his head in Katniss's lap, her hands fidgeting in his hair, lips moving rapidly to tell him how unnecessary it had been. He fights it for her. He fights for her. But also for himself. That's why he paints the memories. She hates them, and avoids looking at them as much as possible. He understands, but it's something he needs to do.

Tonight, he paints Prim by candle light, and it's not a grotesque image or something of her from 13, looking pensive and worried and far, far too old. Instead, it's Prim as a little girl, nose pressed against the display case at the bakery, staring at his cakes while Katniss looks on protectively. He knows it's real before he's even finished. He's focused on mixing the right color for buttercream icing (which is so much more than just _white_, which is why it's taking a small eternity), when he hears Katniss sprinting down the hall. Her eyes are frantic when she skids to a stop in front of the open studio door, but she calms down right away when she sees he's just painting. He expects her to just go back to bed, but she actually makes her way over to him, eyes unintentionally flicking back and forth over his art. He sees the way she physically cringes at some of them and gets nervous over how she'll react to his rendering of Prim.

"Couldn't sleep?" She asks when she's a few paces away.

He shakes his head.

"Buttercup was scratching at the door, and it was hot in there. I'm sorry I left. I was just…" He searches for the right word. "Restless."

She nods in understanding. He's certainly woken up to an empty bed a couple times in the past few weeks. She knows how hard it is to get a full night sleep, even if no nightmares come. She knows what it's like to not be able to turn your conscious off.

"I was scared. I thought something happened."

She's shivering in her thin sleep shorts and bare feet, wrapping her arms around her midsection to keep warm, so he tells her to go back to bed.

"I'm up now," she responds. "Don't wanna miss the sunrise if… oh."

She's made her way around the easel and notices her sister's face staring up at her. He feels her arms wrap around his chest from behind and come to rest on his shoulders.

"Just something I remembered," he explains.

She nods, chin on his collar bone, and he turns on an impulse to capture her lips easily. She returns the kiss, if a little sleepily, but it lets him know she's okay. She's not mad at him. He's relieved. When he stands to lead her downstairs to watch the sunrise as she suggested, she throws her arms around his waist, pressing her face back into his neck.

"That's just the way she looked when she got excited. That's exactly it," she mumbles.

He can feel her voice vibrating against his skin.

"I'm glad," he tells her.

"Me too."

"Ready for today?"

"I am now."

Downstairs, he toasts bread and makes hot chocolate and they call it breakfast.


	34. Chapter 34

"Thom!" She calls out when they reach the square, recognizing him immediately amongst the crews.

"Hey Katniss," he says, friendly smile on his face like always.

Everyone seems to know Thom, and everyone seems to like him. Someone had to fill Peeta's old role, she supposes rather bitterly. He was one of the first to come back to 12, and somehow wound up spearheading the rebuilding efforts.

There hasn't been much assistance from the new government, although Paylor and Plutarch and their people have been doing all they can to help clean up the districts. The problem is that there's so much to do and so few people to do it. Thank God for people like Thom, who do good work willingly without being paid for it.

Beyond that, Katniss doesn't really know much about the state of Panem at the moment. She wonders, if she were to ask, how much would she be able to find out? She should start watching the news at least, because she's not about to send a letter to Plutarch inviting him here with his camera crews and reality shows and singing competitions.

But she's happy living in her little bubble here in 12, where the population is so small it can hardly be considered it's own district and the residents are perfectly happy trading as opposed to using a currency that's gone down the drain. She guesses she has picked up some news during her time in town. But she doesn't care much about the economy, and it's certainly not her job to stabilize Panem's business sectors. All she cares about is the fact that now, people are allowed to pursue whatever trades they wish.

She can hunt legally and trade her kills for other necessities. Sae can sell her soups for coins at a stand in the square without having to worry about the fact that she works in a black market. The butcher and the grocer can make livings without being regulated by the government. She supposes that it might be worrisome that there's no official doctor in 12, but she's heard word of government funded hospitals being set up in other districts, most notably 4, and assumes that 12 will have one soon enough. They'll have to, considering their small population has been growing fast enough.

They also don't have a bakery. The old one still remains in black ruins, utterly charred. It's suspected to be one of the first targets of the fire bombs. Peeta's family never stood a chance. There one minute, nothing but ash the next. Just like Prim.

"Katniss."

She feels a hand on her elbow, Peeta's, she knows, because she knows his touch and if it was anyone else it would have startled her.

"You good?" He asks, trying to sound casual in front of Thom for her sake.

"Yeah, sorry, I was just thinking."

She wonders how long she clocked out of the conversation for.

Turning to Thom, she says, "Sorry. Had some head trauma in 13. Still kind of hard to organize my thoughts sometimes."

Peeta's forehead creases in worry, but Thom accepts her excuse readily, picking up the conversation for her.

"Well, Peeta was just mentioning that you'd like a spot on the crews. That's certainly good to hear. We can use as many able bodies as we can get. And seeing you two helping out might encourage some more volunteers. When can you start?"

"Today," Katniss says.

Thom nods and thinks for a second, glancing at the workers around him.

"Don't think I can manage to squeeze you guys in the same group. That okay?"

Katniss assures him that it is, put out by the implication that they can't work separately for just a few hours a day. This seems to have the opposite effect on Peeta, and while he nods along with her, he's also slung an arm over her shoulders. She's reminded of old times, him completely certain of their unity, her fighting it with everything she had. The thought kind of comforts her. She likes seeing little bits of the old Peeta. She sees them more and more each day.

Thom quickly explains the work they'll be doing. The bodies have all been cleared, placed in a mass grave in the meadow. This was obviously the first order of business. She's glad it's done, but the thought of all those bodies, of the meadow, of thousands upon thousands of her people gone, nearly makes her physically sick.

She killed them. She's the only reason 12 was fire bombed. There's no denying it. She's not sure if she'll ever be able to visit the meadow again. Her sister isn't there. She's nowhere. But Madge and her family might be. And Peeta might be holding on to the false pretense that there might have been something left of his family, his brothers maybe, that they could have buried. Given at least somewhat of a proper goodbye to. She knows it's a delusion, but he might not.

They've never really talked about the demise of 12, and he doesn't mention his family much. Really, they've only ever talked about them once, the day he burned his hand. She knows she'll never bring it up. She doesn't want to push it. They have a sort of unspoken agreement about what it's okay to talk about. This rather limits their conversation topics, and she thinks they both know that one day, they'll have to break through this fragile barrier. They'll never heal if they don't. But it's still too soon. Their wounds are still too fresh.

She's doing it again, she realizes, spacing out of the conversation, and Peeta's looking increasingly worried about it. She didn't hear what she's supposed to be doing.

"I'm going to introduce you to your crew now, okay, Katniss?" Thom says gently.

"What? Oh, yeah. Okay."

He leads her away from the square, over to a group of men and women shoveling dirt. As they make their way out of the busier construction site, Thom repeats himself for her benefit. Peeta trails in their wake.

"Like I said, right now, we're mostly just focused on clearing out rubble. Dust and dirt and debris, that kind of stuff. Once we level it all out, we can start building. You'll be working here in the square, mostly transporting dirt. Aesop will explain more," he says, gesturing towards a man, who calls the rest of his small crew together.

Thom introduces the lot of them, and she's having a hard time paying attention. She knows she won't remember their names, and actually feels kind of bad about it. He introduces her by saying, "And you all know Katniss Everdeen." They don't, really. She doesn't recognize any of them. Probably merchants. Mostly blondes, like Peeta. Not like that matters anymore. She awkwardly accepts their handshakes and misplaced thanks and begins shoveling dirt into a wheelbarrow as she's instructed. Out of the corner of her eye, she catches sight of Thom steering Peeta back towards the center of the town. She expects he'll be heading back to where the debris is most concentrated, probably more useful lugging heavy objects as opposed to soils and sediments.

She works hard for longer than she expected, sweating profusely as the sun rises higher and higher until it's reached its peak in the sky. But she's glad for the work. She revels in the familiar burn of her muscles. She realizes with some surprise that she's actually missed strenuous physical activity. Something more than hunting. Something like she's been experiencing for the past couple years. Work that has her panting and tired. That had been her norm.

Her team knocks off for lunch at what she guesses to be noon. She doesn't have anything packed, and sits on a stone wall, alone as usual. Nevertheless, a woman who introduces herself as Melissa comes over and offers to split her sandwich. She's about to reject the offer, but her stomach growls pathetically, and Melissa hands over half without further comment. Katniss thanks her, and they exchange idle chitchat for a few minutes before Melissa excuses herself to say hello to a friend she's just caught site of. Katniss finds that she actually appreciated the woman's company, and the fact that she didn't treat her like a hero. She needs more female friends. She briefly thinks of calling up Johanna, but then realizes she doesn't have her phone number. They were just allies, after all. Roommates at most. She's never been good at friends.

She's enjoying the feeling of the sun burning her tender skin, listening to the sounds of demolition and labor and _people_, when she hears something that makes her jump. Something has exploded in town. Probably just more rubble being broken up, she reminds herself. But she still has an ominous feeling. Why does she feel like something bad has happened? She's heard these explosions before. She knows from being around when she trades that the crews occasionally have to use small explosives to clear material that's still embedded in the ground. All at once, she thinks of Peeta heaving blocks of cement in the square, and she's on her feet and running without another thought. It doesn't matter how normal the sound was. She can feel that something isn't right. And when it comes to him, she's learned to trust her instincts.

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**AN: Sorry for not posting yesterday! Maybe expect every other day as opposed to daily, that was kind of ambitious of me haha. Also, sorry that the new chapters have been sort of dry so far. Just trying to reestablish the story and such. Third and final apology is for this cliff hanger, but hopefully the next chapter will be a little bit more of the everlark drama everyone is used to :)**


	35. Chapter 35

He's assigned to work right in the middle of town. His old home. He can literally see the remains of the bakery from where he works, clearing huge pieces of buildings, wondering whose shop it is that he's currently carrying on his shoulders. He doesn't say anything, though. He can be strong. He can get through this. He doesn't even know what he would say. _Hey, Thom, can I maybe not clear land in plain site of the remains of the bakery? My entire family died there._ Okay, maybe he could say that, but he can't find Thom. And he'd be embarrassed about admitting the fact that he really can't deal with this.

He tries to think happy thoughts to calm him down, something that used to work when he was a kid and his mother was wailing on him. It doesn't seem to work as well as it once did, and he guesses he needs to update his coping mechanisms. He tries picturing Katniss, shovel in hand, sweating, braid coming undone, but honestly, that just gets him kind of turned on. He finally ends up channeling all of his energy into the physical labor. He selects the heaviest chunks of concrete and tries to move them with speed. By lunch, he's tired himself out so much that his body is visibly trembling, but at least he's still holding on. And who knows, maybe he'll actually sleep well tonight.

One of his crew members calls him over to eat lunch in a group with the rest of them, and he smiles politely, excusing himself to buy something to eat because he didn't pack a lunch. The crew returns his smile and promises to save him a seat in their small circle. He's reminded of his school days and feels nostalgic. He tries to walk towards Greasy Sae's stand, but instead, his feet lead him to the bakery. Or what remains of it. The place looks worse off than most. There's almost nothing left of it, save the foundation, cemented to the ground. But he knows it's the bakery. He's sure of it. Actually, he thinks he can make out the structures of what used to be their two huge ovens. No surprise those sturdy motherfuckers survived a bombing. He's almost there, almost right in front of it, when the explosion sounds and he loses his mind. He thinks he can actually feel his head split in two.

_Bombs drop from the sky, obliterating District 12. They target his family members, first his mother, then his father, then his brothers. He watches them burn. Except they don't really burn. Not slowly, at least, like a fire. They explode. They're crushed. His home is ruined_. _He tries to close his eyes, to block it all out, but for some reason, he can still see it all. Everything up in flames. People running, down the path, to the meadow, to the forest. People he knows. Delly, following the few who are brave enough to finally enter the forest. He never could bring himself to do it as a kid. _

_Then, he sees Katniss, hideously beautiful, watching from somewhere safe and luxurious, smirking as her beloved home town burns. Her home town. Just like his. Where her family lives. Her mother and sister, who she would give anything to keep safe. Absolutely anything. Her own life. He knows this. Everyone knows this. So why would she be orchestrating the fire bombing of 12? It doesn't make any sense._

His mind fractures again, and for a second, he feels reality. The dirt pressed into his hands, his face. He's on the ground, outside. But he's still. He doesn't think he's hurt anyone. He hears screaming, and it scares him. Probably his own.

_Hands are on him, shaking his shoulders, jerking him around. He doesn't like being touched. Touch has always meant danger. Even when he was a little kid. But then, he didn't mind it so much, as long as he knew it was coming or he initiated it. He remembers fierce hugs from his father, and gentle ones from his best friend, Delly. He hasn't seen them in so long. He doesn't know where they are. But if he knows one thing, it's that if he's being touched, something bad is going to happen. He's going to get hurt. He's sick of getting hurt. He gets his feet under the belly of the attacker and throws the person off him, shielding his head and curling up to protect his midsection, sure that the next assailant is right around the corner. Probably wielding a needle. He hates needles. Probably Katniss. He hates Katniss. He grits his teeth and prepares to fight again, but before he can stand, the person is upon him. _

_He doesn't know who it is. There's a weight in his head and on his chest and he can't think clearly. His wrists are pinned to the ground. His mind aches as he commands himself to see clearly. His vision is blurring, mind going blank, and he still can't figure out who's on top of him. He can't figure out what's real and what isn't. This can't be real. This isn't real. The weight in his head lifts, just slightly, and for a second, all he sees is black, thick as ash. Then, spotty light, until he can finally start to see the world in front of him. Light. Daytime. The smell of dirt. Sweat. This is real. This is real._

It's Katniss sitting on his chest, pinning him, nails leaving crescent moon markings on the insides of his wrists. Everything is blurry, but at least it isn't shinny. It's all he can do to focus on her face. He traces her features with his thumb as she mumbles phrases over and over until he finally falls into a blissful unconsciousness.

He must not have been out for more than a few minutes, because when he comes to, he can still smell dirt and he hears Katniss yelling. She's mad. Whoever's on the receiving end of this tangent is not a lucky person. Peeta almost laughs at the thought, but keeps his eyes closed and his muscles still, not at all ready to face what has just happened to him. What everyone just saw happen to him. It is cowardly of him to lie here while Katniss reams someone out for something that wasn't whoever-the-hell-it-is's fault.

"What the hell, Thom!?"

For something that wasn't Thom's fault, then, he corrects in his mind. Her timing is almost comical.

"Katniss, I was just thinking about logistics, how was I supposed to…"

"How were you supposed to what!? How were you supposed to know _not_ to assign him to work at the fucking _bakery_? Are you kidding me? And then you fucking blow it up right in front of his face!? What the fuck!?"

There might actually be steam coming out of her ears right now. He opens his eyes to check, and when he lifts his head, Katniss and Thom are both staring at him. Everyone else is back to work, pretending they're not in the presence of a certifiably insane and clearly unstable person.

He was right. Katniss looks furious. He says her name and her facial expression melts into something softer as she kneels at his head.

"Peeta," she breathes. "Are you okay? Do you want to try to sit up?"

He's thrown back in time again, but he can't afford to be anywhere besides the present right now, so he ignores the déjà vu and props himself up on his hands, head spinning. He doesn't care. He just wants to get home, take some medicine, and go to sleep for a very long time.

"Can you stand?"

"I think so."

He gets up with her help, but as soon as he straightens, the world tips on its axis and he goes careening into her. They almost hit the ground, but she had enough wherewithal to see it coming and steadies them both. He thinks he's going to vomit. He doesn't know how he dealt with flashbacks this bad everyday. It's been a while since he's had one of this caliber. He has to get home before he causes more of a scene.

"Sit back down?"

He shakes his head.

"No. I just want get home."

"Peeta, you can't walk."

He becomes acutely aware of the familiar ache in the spot where the prosthetic connects with his flesh. He wants to rip the thing off.

"I can make it home. It isn't far."

She flashes him a skeptical look. He realizes he's still leaning heavily on her, so he grits his teeth and lets go, standing perfectly fine on his own. Maybe not perfectly fine, but he isn't going to fall over.

"Let me help walk you home," Thom says, softer than Peeta's ever heard him speak. Oh, good, they're going to pretend like what just happened was completely normal. Peeta can tell he feels guilty. Katniss nearly snarls at him, and Peeta shoots her a glance.

"Katniss, he didn't do anything wrong. This isn't even remotely his fault."

She huffs. "I'm not arguing with you right now."

Peeta turns to Thom and apologizes.

"You should have asked to be switched. I would have switched you."

Katniss literally lunges at Thom, and Peeta has to grab onto her waist to keep her from hitting him. Not that Thom couldn't take her. Thom is huge. But Katniss's fingernails are deadly, Peeta knows. She's yelling at him again and Peeta lifts her off the ground and turns around. He apologizes to Thom again over his shoulder.

"I'll reassign you, if you wanna come back!" Thom calls.

"We'll be back tomorrow," Peeta returns.

They have to be. They have to do this.

* * *

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	36. Chapter 36

"Put me down," she demands.

He does, and she's still _pissed_, but not at Peeta. She wraps her arm around his waist and presses herself against his side. If she's being honest, she's not completely sure he won't fall over again.

"Do you need anything?" She asks.

"To go home."

She just nods and stays silent the rest of the walk, trying to gage his mood, his pain, his mental state, anything. He looks greenish, and she suspects he's trying to keep it together until he can get to their room and lock her out. Sure enough, when she opens the door, he walks steadily to the sink, grips the edge of the counter, hard, and throws up everything in his stomach.

She doesn't really know what to do. She knows how to handle psycho-maniac Peeta, but when he just shuts her out like this, she's at a loss. She guesses it's what she used to do to him, and sometimes still does. She wishes they could both just get over themselves.

He's still gripping the sink, and she's afraid he's going to have another flashback. She walks silently over to him and wraps her arms around his waist from behind, pressing her cheek into his back. His shirt is damp with sweat against her face.

"I'm sorry," he says.

"How many times do I have to tell you to stop apologizing?"

"I am. I'm not sorry that it happened. I'm sorry that it keeps happening. Katniss, what if I never get better? I know that you think you're stuck with me at this point, but…"

"Stop that. I am not stuck with you, Peeta. I don't have to be here. That's the whole point. After everything that's happened, everything we fought for, why would I stay with you for any other reason than I _want _to? Before, when we got engaged, I couldn't even think about trying to be happy because I had no choice in the matter. It didn't matter if I loved you, I was going to have to marry you no matter what. So I tried not to even think about it. But now that that's all gone, I _can_ think about it. I want to. And I love you and I want to be with you. Please don't feel like I'm doing this for any other reason. It's honestly offensive to me. Don't underestimate the way I feel about you."

"I'm…"

"Don't. Don't be sorry. Just… don't anymore."

He faces her, eyes shockingly serious, no trace of the happy boy she once knew.

"You know I love you, Katniss. You're my everything. Everything I ever wanted. And at first, I wanted to get better for you. But what about me? What if I want to do this for me, too? I can't keep living like this. The flashbacks aren't getting better, no matter what I try. They should be getting better, Katniss. What if I had hurt someone? I want to be able to be out there without being scared of myself."

"They are getting better! You're getting better. You haven't had one this bad in weeks. We're doing everything we can. What more do you want to do?"

He's silent for a beat.

"I've been thinking about going back to the Capitol. To Dr. Aurelius."

She sighs.

"Peeta…"

"I can't live like this. I just can't. Did you just see what happened? I just had a psychotic breakdown in front of all of District 12. What if I had hurt someone? And I can't explain it to anyone."

"No one blames you, Peeta."

Her voice lacks its normal conviction. What's the difference, really, between he and her? They blame her. They know she's crazy. Last the world saw of her, she was assassinating their president, and only escaped charges because of her insanity. What must District 12 think of her?

"You can't tell me that. I know you think they do. I know you think they blame you for the way you are too."

His bluntness and ability to read her so well unsettles her. She's wordless again.

"I'm dizzy," he says.

"Upstairs?"

"Let's stay down here."

She doesn't question him, and they retire to the couch. They don't sleep. It's too bright and neither of them are tired.

"Do you want your medicine?" She asks.

He hesitates.

"I don't care if you do," she says.

"You know it makes me… moody."

Understatement. He's mean when he takes it. But she knows it counteracts the effects of his flashbacks. So she goes upstairs, grabs two of the pills out of the bottle in their bathroom, and goes back downstairs to present them to him with a glass of water.

"Take them."

"Something's wrong with me," he says.

"I know."

"Not the flashbacks. I'm not happy anymore. Not ever. Everything is too numb. But I want to be. Not just for you. I want to feel good."

She wants him to feel good. Wordlessly, she sets down the pills and water and reaches for the waistband of his pants. He lets her flick open the button, but that's all.

"Don't," he says.

"I want to."

"This isn't what I meant."

"I want to."

"You don't have to."

"I want to."

He finally raises his hips, allowing her to rid him of his clothing. She's never seen him fully nude before. The most they've done to each other is kiss, and occasionally she rides him and he'll touch her, but they're always fully clothed. She's seen penises before, her mother is a healer, after all, but she's never wanted to look. Now, she wants to. So she does. And he lets her. It's… nice. She doesn't have much to compare it too. Subconsciously, she worries that it'll hurt when he enters her. She's startled by these thoughts, thoughts of sex with Peeta, but it's not like she hasn't ever had them before. At this point, she knows that she wouldn't deny him if he were to try initiating something more between them. But he never does. She wonders if there's something wrong with her. She wouldn't blame him if he wasn't turned on by her. She's mangled now, with melted fire mutt skin and uneven hair and scars everywhere. But this isn't about her. This is about him. She wants to make him feel good, feel anything. She wants him to _feel_. If she's honest, it's been hard for her as well.


	37. Chapter 37

Something is very wrong. He's known for a while, which is why he hasn't tried to go further with her. But he just thought that if anyone could fix this problem for him, it would be her. On her own time. Clearly, it is unfixable.

He can't get hard.

Katniss is pumping his dick with her hand, and hypothetically, he should be about to have the greatest fucking orgasm of his life. This is _Katniss Everdeen_. And she looks adorably focused and sexier than normal, cheeks flushed with the day's work, slightly damp shirt clinging to her body, giving the illusion of more curves than she actually has. But he remains limp.

"Stop," he says.

"No, I can do it, I can…"

"Katniss," he says, taking her hands in his. "This isn't your fault. It's been… I haven't been able to… get off. Since I've been home. I don't know what's wrong. It has something to do with some of the medication, I think."

She releases a breath.

"Before, when you said you couldn't feel, I knew what you meant. I think it's something I'm taking. I'm not that good at remembering to take my pills, and sometimes when I forget, I notice I can… I don't really know how to describe it… I just feel more human. I'm not so sad when I take them, but I'm also not happy. I'm just… numb. Like you said."

She looks like she wants to say more, so he just waits her out.

"I've tried, too. Touching myself, I mean. Because… um… I want to… do things with you… but you don't seem like you want to. But I don't feel anything. It's completely dry down there. I doubt we could have sex if we tried."

"You want to have sex with me?"

"Are you serious?"

He's suddenly smirking at her, stunned by the pleasantly unexpected admission, but also unable to resist teasing her.

"I can't believe you just said that," he says.

"I can't believe the only thing you got from it was the fact that I want to fuck you," she deadpans.

"Say that again."

"Why? Will it help?" She motions to his dick.

"No. I just want to hear it."

"Okay. Peeta, I want to fuck you."

She's so serious when she says it, so matter of fact and clinical, it makes him laugh. In this moment, he loves her. He wants to love her so much more. He wants it to fill him like it used to. He wants to feel it all.

"Let's stop taking them," he suggests.

"What?"

"The drugs. Let's stop taking them."

"Peeta, we can't just… we can't…"

"Maybe not all of them, then. Maybe we can figure out which ones are doing this to us. We can call Dr. Aurelius."

"I am _not _having that conversation with him."

"I will, then."

Her mouth hangs open.

"Fine. Call him. But I don't want to hear any of it."

He immediately leaves the room and places the call.

"This is insane," he says when he finally comes back.

"What? What's the worst that can happen if we don't take the drugs? We're sad? I've been sad before. I think I can handle it. I want to feel again, Peeta. I want to feel _you_. I'll do anything."

"It's not that simple."

"Just tell me what he said."

"Antidepressants, antipsychotics, anticonvulsants, anti-anxieties, mood stabilizers. It could be any of those things. That's as much as he could narrow it down for us."

"That's a narrowed down list? I didn't even think I was taking that many pills."

"You're not, but I am. Here, I have it written down."

He hands her the scrap paper with all their different medications on it. She has the antidepressants and the mood stabilizers, along with a host of other things that aren't as strong, that don't impact her emotionally or sexually. Hypothetically, she could stop taking these things and be okay. She could learn to live without them. It would be hard, the doctor had told him, but not impossible. Actually, for Katniss, it would probably be a good idea. That's the end game for her, after all. To learn to live with as few drugs assisting her day to day activities as possible.

For him, it just isn't the same. He takes all the above, plus a few others. Like her, he could, in theory, wean himself off of the antidepressants, anti-anxieties, and mood stabilizers. But the antipsychotics and the anticonvulsants are necessities. The antipsychotics help control the worst of the flashbacks, help calm the voices in his head, help him not want to kill her. But they induce seizures, hence the anticonvulsants. So really, he shouldn't stop taking either of them. But there's no guarantee that they aren't part of his problem. According to the doctor, it's probably a combination of all these things that's causing the sexual disfunction.

"Jesus, Peeta. So what did he say we can do? Anything? There has to be something we can try."

"Yeah. He said we can try to eliminate them one at a time, slowly. We cut out the antidepressants and mood stabilizers once a week until we feel like we can handle that. Then we only take them every other day. And if we want, eventually, not at all."

"What about you? What if that's not enough? What if you need to stop some of the other drugs, too?"

"Well, if it comes to that, I can try not taking those as well. But it would be safer if I went to the Capitol to do it. That way, Dr. Aurelius could monitor me if anything were to… to go wrong."

She shakes her head vigorously, and he moves to sit beside her.

"It's just a last resort, Katniss. We don't need to worry about that yet."

"I know," she whispers.

"You want to do this, then?" He asks.

"I do."

"Okay. Well, tomorrow we'll go talk to Thom. Tell him we need a day off each week. That'll be the day we don't take the pills."

"Okay," she agrees.

"I love you," he says. "I'm doing this for you. For us."

"Me too," she says. "For us."

He wants to sit here in silence with her, maybe turn on the television for a change, just relax and recover from today. But he can sense she's uneasy. He doesn't know how, exactly. He can just feel it radiating off her.

"What if this is a bad idea?" She asks.

"Katniss, I'm sorry if I made you feel pressured. We really don't have to do this. You don't have to do this. But I'd like to try. I'd like to try to get back to something more normal. And for me at least, I think I'd feel better if I was less drugged up. I'll never be me again if I'm only half living."

"No no no," she says, fisting her hair, unraveling a little.

"It's okay," he tells her. "Take your time."

He wants her to be able to express herself. He wants to help her.

"Just… what if it doesn't work, Peeta? What if we can't function without the pills? What if we never can and we're stuck like this forever, not really living but not allowed to die?"

"We'll do it. We can do it. It's gonna be hard, like Dr. Aurelius said, but he wouldn't have endorsed it if he didn't think it was a good idea. And we'll do it together. We have each other."

"You're not gonna quit? Not gonna get angry or fed up with me and leave?"

She sounds like a child.

"Nope. Never. I'm staying right here."

"Always?"

"Always."


	38. Chapter 38

"Katniss. Katniss."

Someone is shaking her shoulder. Peeta, of course. She wakes up drooling on his shirt, still perched on the couch. It's almost dark. He never wakes her up unless she's having a nightmare. Why did he wake her up?

"Is everything okay?"

"I need to ask you a question."

He looks frantic and still slightly pained. She's hungry and she wants to take a shower and she's wondering why he's been sitting here for hours watching the sun set instead of simply moving her off him or waking her up. He must be hungry too. But she knows when he gets stuck like this, stuck on his memories, she has to help him remember before anything else.

"Okay," she says, sitting up and drawing circles on his thigh with her finger. Meant to be a relaxing gesture. He stops her aggressively, and she can tell whatever this is, it's really bothering him, so she finally makes eye contact and forces herself not to fidget. To pay attention.

"Tell me about how my family died."

She goes cold inside.

"I don't… I don't really know much, to be honest."

"Tell me what you do know, then. Please. No one would at first, and then I didn't want to ask."

"You know what, happened, Peeta. They were right in the middle of 12. They were killed by the fire bombs. Like everyone else. I don't know what you're looking for here."

He puts his head in his hands.

"I don't know, either. I just feel… late. When they were killed, I was on my way to the Capitol, I think. And while I was there, while I was still thinking straight, I remember just hoping against all odds that they were safe. You and your family, too. I don't know what I was thinking then. There was no chance of them being left alone. All because of me. And then in Thirteen, I don't even think it hit me that they weren't there until at least a few days in. And then I really got it, when other people started coming around, like Haymitch and Prim and Delly, that they weren't coming to see me. Never coming to see me again. And I think everyone knew that I knew, but Delly told me anyway. Told me that there was no more District 12, that there was no more school and bakery and town and seam. No more family. She told me they were all dead, her family too, and I asked her if she was sure and I just kept asking and I think I made her cry and she left. And I think after that there was just always a part of me that was hoping they'd somehow made it out, that Delly was wrong and they were just running around out in the forest, trying to come home. But when I saw the bakery today, I think that's when I knew for sure. I mean, it was just obliterated. I don't even know how I recognized it…"

"That's what your flashback was about, wasn't it? About the bombing? Your family? That's what you were thinking of. And I was doing it."

"Yeah."

She's become very skilled at picking up on what set him off and what was going on in his head based on the questions he asks afterwards.

"But you know I was in the hospital in Thirteen when it happened, right?"

"Yeah."

"And you know it killed me too, right?"

He scoffs.

"What? Twelve was my home just as much as it was yours."

"And who'd you lose in that attack, Katniss? Your entire family made it out safe. And let's not forget Gale's family, too."

"Well they're all gone now, Peeta!"

He relaxes a bit and she's glad, because this is normal. Her yelling at him without real just cause and him staying calm anyway.

"Calm down. Calm down. I'm sorry. I didn't mean to say that. I just mean that they're not _all _gone, I know the most important one is, but the rest are alive and you know that."

Better. He's not yelling. He's rational. She should be too.

"I know. I'm sorry."

"Okay, well if there's nothing else to say about it…"

There is, though. And because the majority of her family is still alive, nowhere near her, but presumably alive, she owes it to him to be brutally honest. She knows it's what he wants.

"They think the bakery was the initial target. Plutarch told me in Thirteen. That was where the first bomb hit, the biggest one. That's why it looks so smashed. And your whole family was inside. Definitely killed on impact. Nothing but dust left to burry. I'm sorry, Peeta. I'm so sorry."

He's crying silently now, hands weaving through his hair. She doesn't know if she should try touching him or not. She thinks it might upset him more. She's about to get up to get some sleep syrup, just knock him out right here on the couch so that he can wake up in the morning and try to put all of this behind him, when his arm swings out and he grabs her around the waist pulling her close to him, sliding her across the couch like she weighs nothing at all. The tears are still flowing freely, and she suspects he's too exhausted to even thing about trying to hold them in. But he's looking right at her like he's realizing something, and she wants to help him get there, and the only thing she can think of is his lips, so she kisses him hard and he returns it.

"You didn't die, though," he says, like he's just now realizing what a miracle it is. He's been slow to catch himself up with things like this. She realized it long ago.

He's staring at her again like she's life itself, whispering "you didn't die, you're here, you're alive, you're safe," trying to reassure himself that if nothing else, at least she's okay. At least one person who mattered to him is okay. She feels needed and important and safe. She is safe. She matters. She has him. They have each other. She climbs onto his lap and holds his head against her chest as he sobs, the real thing now, remembering how many times she felt like this when she came out of the burn unit and realized her little sister was dead. Except there was no one there to hold her. She will not let him slip away like she did. He's too important.

"It's okay, you're okay, we're okay, it's alright," she whispers over and over again until he's all cried out.

* * *

**AN: Just wanted to say a quick thank you for your reviews. They make me smile.**


	39. Chapter 39

The next day goes by mechanically, one step at a time. But they get through it. Get out of bed. Force down breakfast. Walk into town. Talk to Thom, who says of course, almost everyone takes at least a day off each week. Work. Work. Work. Lunch together. Work. Work. Work. Home. Quiet dinner with Haymitch. Work on the book. Pass out almost immediately after setting it down. It's good. The repetition. The monotony. They need the routine. He doesn't work near the bakery any more and doesn't even come close to having another flashback.

Slowly, throughout the week, things go back to the normalcy they had established. They even start watching the news at night after dinner, flipping through the channels when that gets too boring or hard to watch, laughing at the particularly outlandish shows obviously engineered for a Capitol audience, but which they can now see in the districts. Who wore it best? He quickly learns that the answer is no one. All of these rising television stars look ridiculous, although he notices that the Capitol fashion is becoming a little more subdued as people from different districts make their homes there and people from the Capitol journey outside of it. Once in a while, they'll see their faces on the screen or hear their names mentioned, and they usually change the channel quickly when that happens.

He enjoys watching TV, but he still prefers his other hobbies. He realizes with some satisfaction that he actually has hobbies again. Things he finds joy in, though not the same way he used to. Detached joy. The memory of joy. He will change that. The night before their first day without antidepressants or mood enhancers, she's sitting in between his legs in their bed, his back against the headboard, her's against his chest, when she says, "It can't be that bad. Just one day a week with no medicine. Just one day a week. That's nothing." He nods and falls asleep holding her, believing her, without taking the pills they agreed to cut out first. The next day, he learns just how wrong he was to do so.

When he wakes up, the sun is up, and he jumps because he thinks they've missed their alarm. Then, he remembers that they have the day off. He takes his essential medications and falls back asleep without taking the others.

When he wakes up next, the sun is high in the sky and Katniss is shaking him, telling him to get up.

"We don't have to," he mumbles from under the pillows.

"We do," she says lightly.

"No, we don't have work today, Katniss."

"We have to get up," she tells him, slightly more agitated.

He rolls on to his back and looks at her.

"Why?"

"I'm afraid if we don't do it now, we never will again."

"That's…"

"It's not ridiculous. It's what happened to my mother. It's what happened to me."

"Okay, Katniss," he concedes, and drags himself out of bed to the shower. He kisses her on the cheek first, and she complains that he has morning breath. He laughs.

Ten minutes later, he's got his head in the toilet, vomiting. Another ten minutes and he's still retching. She's calling his name now (he should have left the water running so she didn't hear him), and when he doesn't answer, she throws the door open. He can't see her, he's still almost submerged in the toilet water. He doesn't want to support his own head. His neck hurts. Everything hurts. He's trembling and sweating even though he's shirtless on the cold tile floor. He presses his hands to the tiles and feels some heat leach out of his body.

Dr. Aurelius warned him about this. "Discontinuation symptoms," he'd called them. Told him to watch out, and then started babbling about psychological withdrawal, and Peeta kind of tuned out at the word "psychological."

"It feels like the flu," he says once she's managed to separate him from the toilet and insert herself in his arms instead, wrapping her small form around him. His head rests heavily on her shoulder. He feels to shitty to care.

"It's not," she tells him matter-of-factly.

"I know."

"We can't call the doctor."

"I know."

"He'll make us stop… or worse. He'll make us go there."

"I know."

"Do you want to stop? I wouldn't be upset, Peeta. Say the word and I'll go get the meds."

"No. For us, but for me, too. Remember?"

He feels her nod.

Another ten minutes. She starts shaking. He thinks she's crying, so he holds her tighter. It's a thousand degrees in their bathroom. She's hot in his arms. She turns at the waist, breaking his grip but still in his lap, and vomits up everything she ate yesterday. Half way through her bought of nausea, he feels sick again and practically throws her off of him to pull himself up to the sink. He dry heaves, every muscle clenched, and when his body finally relaxes, she's curled in a ball on the cold floor, cheek pressed to it. He sinks down next to her, back against the wall facing the toilet, and strokes her hair. She rolls over and puts her head in his lap.

He's not sure if they'll be able to go through with his. He's not even sure they'll make it through the day. Yet somehow, at the same time, he knows they will. That's what they do. They get through shit. Everyday. Day by day. Together. Anyway, they've been through much worse. And if Haymitch can survive withdrawal symptoms, they sure as fuck could.


	40. Chapter 40

**AN/Warning: This chapter gets a little lemony at the end! I'm changing the rating back to M for a few reasons, language, lemons, and references to possible triggers throughout (depression, overdose, ect.). The lemons are new! If that's not your thing, I'm blocking off the more explicit content at the end with a horizontal line like the one below, so if you don't read what's below that line, don't worry, you won't miss any plot. As always, thank you for follows, favorites, and reviews.**

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That's it. She's getting the pills. She can't take this anymore. She forces her eyes open, and the fluorescent lights of the bathroom almost force her to empty her stomach yet again. She shoves herself away from Peeta, unable to stand his body heat for any longer. Sweat plasters his blond curls to his forehead and his skin is a sickly green hue. Yeah, they definitely can't do this. She reaches for the door knob and drags herself to her feet.

"Where are you going?" His voice rings out as soon as she cracks the door.

"I quit," she grumbles. "And you do too. You look decrepit."

She inexplicably angry. But she's also across the room and in the nightstand where they keep all their medication bottles. Relief washes over her simply at the sight of them.

"This isn't a beauty regimen, Katniss. Although, maybe we should look into that. You're not exactly glowing right now. I mean, neither of us are Finnick Odair, obviously, but…"

And then she's hurling everything she can find at him, including the pills, which she immediately regrets because now she knows she's not gonna get to take any. He's always been so much stronger than her. And she's never had any willpower at all. Drinking with Haymitch after the Quarter Quell announcement. Raking the carpet with her fingers looking for morphling when she was supposed to be offing herself in the Capitol. Never actually having the will to do it when she was finally left home alone. Falling in love with him. Sobbing now, wishing for the antidepressants and the mood stabilizers and whatever the fuck else will calm her down. Why the fuck did she ever agree to this? So that she could have sex with Peeta? Fuck that. And fuck him. Fuck him for his strong will and puppy dog stare and for mentioning Finnick. Because she might as well admit that that was the straw that broke the camel's back. God, she misses him. He'd know what to say to get her through this. But she killed him with her stupidity and her weak will. She hasn't even put him in the book yet. Can't even memorialize him. Can't add his page in with her sister's. In the book of dead people. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. She's losing it.

"Peeta! I need them!"

"No, you don't," he says.

She's hyperventilating.

"Peeta!"

"Come here. I'd get up, but if I do I'll vomit again."

She can't move. She can just scream because she's so frustrated with herself. With everyone. With Finnick and Prim for being so _dead_. With Peeta for being so _alive_ and _good_.

He groans and slowly gets to his knees with a, "Fuck you, Katniss."

She watches his eyes flutter shut before his head disappears in the toilet for the millionth time that day. Then, he's picking his way around the mess of things she threw at him to get to her. Hands on her shoulders. Pushing her down. Her ass hitting the bed. His weight next to her. His heat around her. She's shivering now, like the thing that was heating her fever went out, and she reaches for him because he's still sweaty as fuck.

"You're okay," he says. "Just a few more hours. A few more hours and then we can take the meds and go to sleep and wake up tomorrow and feel normal again. We just gotta get through this day. We're almost there. We didn't go through all of this for you to give up now."

Those few more hours feel more like a few more eternities. With every pound that threatens to split her head open and every wave of nausea, she thinks she won't make it. But he always reminds her that they're almost there. That it'll be worth it in the end. And eventually, she starts to see that he's right.

That day is the hardest. The next week they're sick again, but she realizes why she's doing this. Why they're doing this. They manage to eat dinner and keep it down that second week. She's actually feeling okay, but they still agree to skip the book. They're in the bathroom brushing their teeth when it happens. He reaches across her to grab the towel and his fingers lightly brush her stomach. She squirms a bit, and he notices. Then, slowly, that smile that drives her mad starts to work its way onto his face.

"Are you ticklish?" He asks.

"N… no."

"You are!" He yelps.

He grabs hold of her and practically drags her to the bed, her kicking and half heartedly fighting with him the whole way. He pins her easily and tickles her everywhere, and she's laughing so hard that her sides hurt, she's crying, her smile is gonna split her face, and he's laughing with her and they haven't been able to laugh like this in _so long_. The realization stuns them both when they manage to catch their breath. _That's _why they're doing this.

Week three is nothing. Piece of cake. So they decide it's time for every other day. This proves even harder. They have to stay home more often than they'd like. Sometimes she can't get out of bed. They fight a lot more, both unstably moody. But they adjust. Another few weeks and they can function just fine taking the pills every other day. And she's feeling things she hasn't felt in a long time. The tiny bit of hope that comes with watching a butterfly make its way across her work site. The pleasure that once came from singing that she now feels when one of the workers plays his fiddle during lunch breaks. The contentment of being in the forest. The love she feels for Peeta growing stronger, more real, almost tangible.

So, they drop to once a week. One night, after a particularly rough day where she broke down, begging so hard for the pills that Peeta had no choice but to comply (they've both broken the once a week streak at least a couple times), her eyes fly open, but she can't remember what she was dreaming that caused her to wake up. Her thighs are clenched tightly together. She relaxes and then clenches again, feeling a tingling in her belly. Slowly, she runs one hand down her abdomen and slips her fingers into her underwear. She's drenched. Her body works again. A smile breaks out on her face without her permission.

"Peeta," she whispers.

He moans and swats her away, so she kisses along his jawline, sucking lightly until she reaches his lips. He's definitely awake now, rolling on top of her and pinning her wrists.

"What's up," he asks way to casually.

"Touch me," she says, getting right to the point.

His left hand goes for her right breast, but she shakes her head almost imperceptibly.

"Not there."

She sees his eyes go dark with lust.

"Katniss… are you sure?"

"See for yourself."

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When his calloused finger pushes into her, she sparks. She flies up, grabbing his shoulders and digging in with her fingernails. He stills his motions inside of her and she squirms, desperate for him to continue what he was doing.

"Don't stop."

He slips in a second finger and she can't help but grind herself against his palm. He develops a rhythm fingering her, and then closes his mouth over her nipple. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to chase the sensation that's so close. Trying, trying, trying, trying. His fingers move rapidly inside her, brush her clit. His other hand on her breast now, needing, flicking her nipple, touching her just right. His mouth all over, her chest, her neck, her mouth. And her, still trying, trying, trying. But she's not fast enough. Not fast enough to catch up to whatever it is she's chasing.

"Fuck!" She screams, falling back.

He stops.

"You didn't come," he says.

"You've done this before," she says.

"Does that bother you?"

She silent. Of course it does. He's _hers_. And she's the jealous type.

"If it helps, I don't remember any of them. Not even a little. I know I'd been with girls before, not a ton, I don't think, but all their faces are completely blurry. I doubt I was trying very hard to hold on to those memories. I'm pretty sure the sex was awful every time. I was thinking of you. That much I'm sure of."

His eyes are dark again, and she can tell he's determined to get her to climax, but it isn't going to happen. It was all for nothing. She feels defeated. He kisses her again and she pushes him off of her.

"Don't bother, Peeta."

"No, you were close, I could tell."

He's climbing on her again, and she's protesting, but he's telling her to just let him try one more thing, and she trusts him with her life so she figures why the fuck not.

When he hooks his fingers in her underwear, she lifts her hips and he removes them completely. Then, his head disappears in between her legs. She feels self conscious for a second, enough to consider telling him to stop once and for all, but then his mouth latches on to her clit, and she knows she's done for. He pulls and sucks and the pressure drives her closer to the edge. She's running again, and this time, she's catching up. With every stroke of his tongue, she gets even closer. She watches his head until he lifts his eyes to meet hers, and when she locks on to his face, stares into those beautiful blue eyes, eyes speaking of want, of wanting her, she catches it.

She's drowning. Drowning, drowning, drowning. Drowning in waves of pleasure. They roll over her body, dragging her against the shore, slamming her into the jetty. Peeta sucks her clit until she stills, until the euphoria passes, and then crawls up next to her. She feels perfect. Like she could sleep through the night, undisturbed. That's what she'll do. She deserves that.

"What about you?" She manages to ask before fading away completely, surrendering herself to the pure bliss of a good night's sleep.

"Don't worry about me," he says, wrapping her up in his arms.

She feels bad that he couldn't experience what she could. Not yet, at least. But he sounded okay, and she's so tired that she doesn't think she'll be able to do or say anything productive, so she just let's herself fall peacefully into the abyss, hoping to drag him with her.


	41. Chapter 41

**AN: Sorry for the wait on this chapter, but it's super long so hopefully that makes up for it! I'm headed back to school on Sunday, so I don't know if I'll be posting as frequently, but I am most definitely _not_ abandoning this story or going on hiatus. I promise to continue writing as much as I can. Hope you enjoy!**

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He'd be lying if he said he didn't resent her at least a tiny bit for that orgasm last night. Their little stunt has worked like a charm for her. In fact, they usually do. Despite what she may think, Katniss Everdeen has a way of getting what she wants. Acting rashly and then being rewarded.

He's not delusional, he knows her life isn't rainbows and sunshine, but her actions are usually effective, if nothing else. The stunt with the berries in the first arena made her important and kept them both alive. Her trick with the arrow in the second arena made her a revolutionary, if an unwilling one. Even her suicide mission into the Capitol ultimately ended the way she wanted, despite some major… setbacks, but she had to have known the consequences. And now, this leap in to the void, the discontinuation of their medications, fixed her current problem. She's off most of her meds and her body works like a normal person's again.

Despite his jealousy, he really is happy for her. Happy for the both of them, actually. He feels better without all the pills. More humanity and less numbness. And on the days when it's all just too much, when he hurts too much and feels too much, he can take his meds and get that dull-edges feeling back for just a day. Not everyday. Most days, he wakes up excited, and if not excited, at least ready, to start his day. He never thought he'd be able to feel that way ever again.

Today, when their alarm blares, he's high strung, but still anxious to get working. He was up most of the night thinking, trying to convince himself not to freak out yet. He was on a higher dosage than she was. He's bigger. She wasn't touching him. He's been tired out after the hard work each day. He tells himself not to jump to any conclusions yet. This could still work for him. It worked for her. Logically, that should give him hope. It could work for him. He could perform sexually while still taking the antipsychotics. It's just the other stuff. But he can't stop thinking about what he'll do if his body is still broken. He'd never go off his other meds here, with her and no one else around. He couldn't risk that. But would he be willing to go all the way back to the Capitol and face another round of therapy with Aurelius just so maybe he could get hard? He doesn't know. He does know that obsessing over it won't help anything. In fact, it might just make matters worse. Slowly but surely, he's learning to be calmer, to let things go, to try moving on, without any drugs to do it for him. So he gets out of bed and gets ready to start his day.

It actually turns out to be a pretty good one. It's one of those perfect mid spring days. He knows her birthday is coming up. For some reason, he remembers. His passed in blur of anguish and despair during the early winter months when they were both home and isolated from one another. He tries not to think of those times too much. When neither of them thought they'd live much longer, didn't want to live much longer. When he was so filled with tracker jacker venom that he was delusional more often than not. Before she came back to him, half dead, and somehow dragged him back into the world of the living. Before he realized how much of his life was still in front of him.

Now, he's got her, and he's rebuilding whatever relationship he had with Haymitch, and he'd even say he's making friends in town. He eats lunch with Greasy Sae and Katniss most days, and he definitely has growing relationship with the older woman. She might even feel the same way towards him. He thinks she likes him well enough. But she never knew him before. Neither did the friends he's made on his crew. He works with them everyday, sometimes even eats lunch with them, and the teamwork has definitely made them all fast friends. They share small talk and joke around with each other and talk about getting together outside of work.

There aren't many kids in District 12, so he and Katniss are amongst the youngest workers in the crews, but no one treats them like children. Far from it. They've earned a respect that they're both loathe to accept. He's been working hard to get rid of that reputation. He doesn't want to be respected. He wants to be liked. The way he used to be. It's something he's been working on, and he thinks it's bringing his best qualities out of hibernation. The bright smile. The self-deprecating humor. The genuine compassion for others that he hasn't felt in so long, save for towards Katniss, and even that was repressed for a while. He's learning how to be himself again.

Katniss seems to be faring well too, as far as he can tell. She's kept to herself much more than he has, but she was never good at making friends and has always preferred to be alone. She was never a carefree kind of girl, that much he can remember. Constantly scowling. He loved her despite it. Because of it. He thinks he can see that girl coming back. Not exactly happy, that's not her personality, but content at least, and motivated. Motivated to help her town and give back to those who helped her when she needed it, including him, he supposes. She's more affectionate, more free with her feelings towards him. He has to admit, it's not something he ever thought he'd see from her. He loves it. He's got his dream girl. Yeah, he'd say he's doing okay.

Maybe that's why he doesn't go completely crazy when one of his friends, a guy named Tiberius who's a little older than him, about Thom's age, mentions the fact that there's nowhere to get baked goods at the market. Most of his crew are newcomers from other Districts, and he's glad that Katniss is the one who got stuck with most of the District 12 returners. He knew a lot of them in another life. Most of the District is new people now, anyway, and he's glad for that too. Tiberius is from 13, as the majority of the new residents of 12 are, and has never had the pleasure of indulging in anything sweet. 13 had their citizens on strict diets. He wonders what it's like there now. He's heard almost no one stayed; it's become the wasteland the Capitol used to pretend it was.

"I've heard some nice things about 12," Tiberius says as they're working on gathering some salvageable remains of Seam homes and luging them towards the town. "Mostly that you guys were pretty much left alone, so you were actually able to have some fun all the way out here. Heard there was a great little bakery everyone loved. Never had anything sweat in 13. What happened to that?"

It's an innocent enough comment, but it makes Peeta tense. Not enough to lose his mind, but enough to lose his words. Thankfully, Alexa, a middle-aged, sturdily built woman on his team comes over and claps her hands on his shoulders, snapping him back into focus. Her family were woodworkers and owned a shop a few doors down from the bakery.

"That was Peeta's family!" She says with enthusiasm. "How 'bout that, Peeta? Ever think of reopening? Not like you need the money."

Laughter all around. He even gets out a chuckle.

"Yeah, I still bake at home. If anyone ever wanted anything, I'm sure I could make it for you. I bake more than enough stuff, really, it wouldn't be a problem. Just ask."

He's surprised at the words that leave his mouth. It's what he would have expected himself to say, his old self, which is why he's so shocked. He hopes no one can tell.

"Actually, Peet, my girlfriend's birthday is coming up," Tiberius remarks. "We met here, but she's from 1, so I'm kinda nervous about planning something. She isn't stuck up or anything, but I'm still worried I won't be able to make this year live up to all her other birthdays, ya know?"

Before he can answer, half of his crew is talking about the cake he did for Finnick and Annie's wedding and Alexa is raving about the cakes he used to do at the bakery and the few who aren't from 12 or 13 are trying to join the conversation by commending him on his paintings, which he apparently showed the nation after the first games, and he's just feeling kind of confused and overwhelmed and that's never a good thing, so he forces a smile and makes sure that he speaks up when he addresses Tiberius.

"I'd love to do a cake for you, buddy. Let me know exactly what you want and when you want it and I'll get it to you, no charge."

"Oh no, Peeta…"

"It's fine. Like Alexa said, it's not like I need the money. I'm gonna go catch up with Katniss for lunch, but I'll see you guys later, okay?"

His crew nods and starts getting ready for their lunch break, and as he walks away, he catches his name in the subdued conversation. He feels bad for cutting Tiberius off so suddenly and hightailing it back towards the square, but he really needed to get out of there. He handled it well, he thinks, but he's not made of steel. The last thing he needs is for the people he thinks he's becoming friends with to see him cry over seemingly nothing. Or worse.

But it's not like they don't know his fucking life story anyway. Or don't they? That's the thing. He never knows. He's managed to keep a relatively low profile over the past few years, at least compared to Katniss, but that's not really saying much. People know everything little thing that happened to him from the first Games, through that year, and into the second Games, but after that, he dropped off their radars for obvious reasons.

What happened to him in the Capitol isn't common knowledge, aside from the fact that he was a prisoner there. But he knows that everyone in 12 looks at him differently. Like he's wounded. Unstable at worst, God-like at best, but more like somewhere in between the two. They're right, he's not the same, and maybe they should be even more afraid of him than they already are, but it doesn't make him like it anymore.

He hates how much he cares what people think of him. He supposes he's always cared. He also knows that he's blowing things out of proportion at the moment. He feels his breath picking up and his blood pressure rising, feels his anxiety building, and he's sworn off the medication that would calm him down. He needs to find Katniss. By the time he gets to her, seated at Sae's soup stand like usual, he can hardly speak at all.

"What's wrong?" She says as soon as she lays eyes on him.

He just starts shaking his head, hoping she'll get the message, and of course, she does. She grabs his wrist, drags him into the empty alley behind the marketplace, and sits him down against the brick wall by pushing on his shoulders. She squats in front of him, staring at his face. He knows that look. Calculating. She's analyzing him. He relaxes a little, just knowing that she can figure out what's wrong without him having to express it at all. He doesn't know what he'd do without her. He loves her so much. He wants to tell her, to hold her, but he's still not fully in control of himself. But it's Katniss, and it's like she can sense this, too. Sense that he's not having a flashback, not crushingly depressed, just having a bad moment, just needs her presence and understanding to bring him back to himself. And she does exactly what he needs her to do, to just _be there_ and to let him know that everything is fine. She slides down the wall and sits next to him, putting her head on her shoulder and holding on to his bicep.

"Okay, Peeta. Okay. It's okay. Just calm down. Calm down and we can talk, if you want. You're okay. Just breathe. You're okay."

And that's what he does. He just breathes, breathes her in, feels her next to him, and it calms him down. When he's caught his breath, he lets his head drop back against the wall.

"Thank you," he says, craning his neck to kiss her temple.

"I owed you for last night," she says with a smile, which brings on one of his own. "Wanna talk about it."

He nods.

"So talk."

He needed the prompting.

"You know my friend, Tiberius?"

She nods a little, vague recognition in her eyes.

"He started asking about the bakery."

"Oh, Peeta," she says in that soft voice reserved only for him.

"No, that wasn't even it though. I was actually fine with that. Alexa, you remember her, she told him that my family ran the bakery, and we talked about it a little, and I even said I'd bake some stuff for the crew. He asked if I'd do a cake for his girlfriend's birthday, and then everyone started talking at once, like they all had something to say. Alexa was talking about my display cakes and all the guys from 13 were talking about the cake I did for Finnick and Annie and even some of the newbies had input about the paintings I did after the first Games. I hardly even remember those, and I think I remember the wedding cake a little too clearly, more clearly than I'd like to remember anything from 13, and I guess that was all just too much too fast, so I told Tiberius that I'd do the cake and booked it out of there. I just wanted to find you. Thank you, Katniss. Thank you."

"Thank you for what?"

"For being here. For being you. I love you so goddamn much."

"Love you too, babe. Just glad you're okay."

"Babe?" He asks, raising his eyebrows.

"Shut up," she tells him, blushing and pushing herself off the ground.

She offers him her hands and pulls him up and they make their way back over to Sae's for a quick lunch.


	42. Chapter 42

**AN: Serious trigger warning for self-harm in this chapter. I'm sorry for this sensitive content, but from the beginning, I've wanted to make this a sort of worst case scenario story without it being unrealistic. I think the realistic worst case scenario for Katniss and Peeta involves dealing with depression and other mental illnesses. So yeah. One step forward, two steps back. That's how it works sometimes. Enjoy.**

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"You're too good to that boy," Sae says.

Katniss shakes her head, not really in the mood to talk today. She scratches at the exposed wood of Sae's counter with the knife she keeps in her boot, sheathed at her ankle.

"You deserve each other, really," Sae continues.

She's wrong, actually. Every morning when she wakes up next to him, Katniss asks herself how she got so lucky with him. Why did he choose her, from the very beginning, when he could have had any girl he wanted? She tries to tell herself it doesn't matter, they chose each other, he loves her, he loves her, he loves her. But recently, something in the back of her mind has been telling her that she isn't good enough for him. And the voice is getting louder. She doesn't want to be working today, with the too hot sun giving her a headache and her crew trying to make small talk with her and the voice telling her that she's worthless. She just feels… weak.

"You okay, girl?"

"Yeah, I'm fine, Sae. I think I'm gonna head home early today, though. Thanks for lunch."

She hands Sae some coins, way more than the usual price for stew, and leaves before the old woman has the chance to protest. She doesn't tell her crew or Thom or Peeta that she's going home. Peeta will worry when she's not there to walk home with him, but she's not going anywhere unusual. Just back to their house. He won't be worried for long. She's not trying to hide. At least, she didn't think she was trying to hide, but she starts to think differently when her feet lead her into her old home instead of their shared one. She hasn't been here in weeks, and she feels like a stranger in these walls. She's frozen at the door, dumbfounded, hearing the ghosts of her mother, her best friend, her sister. She used to hate this house for how crowded it always was, despite its size, but now it's deserted.

She forces herself to move. She has to move, or she won't stay on her feet. Through the kitchen, around the island. Into the living room, running her hand on the worn material of the couch. Up the stairs, into her sister's room. She tries to turn around, to keep moving, to get out of here and back home where she could take the medicine she so obviously needs. She messed up, she realizes now. She didn't see the signs. How couldn't she have seen this coming? It's too late now. Her knees hit the ground, hard, and her head falls to her lap. She clasps her hands behind her neck as her body starts to shake from the effort of holding in the sobs. She commands herself to breathe. After a few minutes, she manages to steady her breaths, but she can't think beyond that. She tries to remember what Peeta tells her when she doesn't want to get out of bed, but those words are usually accompanied by a squeeze of her hand or a caress of her cheek, and she just can't remember what she's supposed to do when this happens. She knows there's a piece of paper in the drawer of her bedside table back home with instructions on how she can get herself through something like this if she were to ever find herself alone. Dr. Aurelius suggested the tactic to Peeta when he called one day last week after Katniss had a particularly bad night and he was worried she was thinking of hurting herself. He was right to be concerned. Katniss hasn't talked to the doctor, but she knows Peeta has been keeping in touch with him again. If it calms him down, she's not going to stop him, but she doesn't need a therapist.

She tries to imagine the paper, to remember what it says, but her eyes are clouded with tears now and she can't see, can't think, can't even breathe anymore. She wipes the tears away, but they're falling too fast, and she starts to scratch at her cheeks in frustration. When she breaks skin, she relaxes for a second. Long enough for her to crawl to the door and close it. Long enough for her to slide Prim's desk chair under the handle. She holds on to the chair for a second too long and feels her sister in it, imagines her sitting at the desk doing homework, and almost loses it. She lets go of the chair like it's caught fire and takes shaky steps to her sisters bed. When she sits, dust rises around her, but she can still smell Prim's scent in the sheets. She breathes deeply and slides the knife from her boot.

_What am I doing? _

She stares at the blade, not really in control of herself. She's on autopilot. She doesn't know what's going on. She's dizzy and breathless and she can't focus on anything besides the voice in her head telling her that she should be dead. She wants to call for help. Call for Peeta. He'll make this better, she knows. But the voice wins out, telling her that he doesn't want to make her better. Doesn't want her. He doesn't want her. He's all she has left, and she's going to lose him. All her fault. She's all alone, except she can feel her sister all around her. She can feel her tucked into her side. She strokes her hair. But that isn't right. Prim is dead. Burned to ash. Dead because of her. Finnick joins them, head unattached from his neck, the way she remembers him looking before she dropped the holo and blew him to bits, too. And Cinna, beaten beyond recognition. She shivers, despite having slid under the covers with her sister, like she used to do on cold winter mornings in those moments before she left to go hunting. So much death and destruction. All because of her.

The list starts to roll in her head, like it did before Peeta came back and drowned it out. Peeta, the only thing tethering her to this world. She didn't realize it, not at first, but all her previous suicide attempts meant nothing. She was never going to do it. Not without knowing that he'd be okay. But now he is. She tells herself he is. He is he is he is. He'd be even better if he were free of her and all her sadness. She's a dead weight to him. She can free him, and herself. She'll cut herself lose of him, and he can be happy, and she can be with her sister.

Prim calls out to her, a noise filled with anguish, the noise she made as she was dying, a noise Katniss is familiar with, and the sound jerks her arm, makes it slide the knife across her wrist, cutting deep. She cuts the other wrist and blood spills onto the white sheets. With red hands, she lifts the blade to her heart.


	43. Chapter 43

**AN: Proud of myself for how quickly I was able to get another chapter out! I was in a writing mood this week. Please don't hate me for sad chapters I promise I like happy endings. As always, I apologize for mistakes and appreciate follows, favorites, and reviews :)**

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She's not waiting for him where she usually does when she finishes work. He gives her a few minutes, but when she still doesn't show, he starts to feel uneasy. He can't find anyone he recognizes from her crew, so he goes to Greasy Sae, who tells him she went home after eating lunch.

"Girl didn't look too good," Sae says, contributing to his unease.

He tries not to panic. He tries not to sprint home. He tells himself everything's okay. She was probably just not feeling well. Maybe she caught a cold, or the flu.

She's nowhere to be found in their house. He's more than uneasy now, and he can no longer convince himself that she's okay. She's run off again, he's convinced. He has to find her. He runs across the street, deciding to start searching at her old house, but he's unable to figure out why she'd go there.

"Katniss!"

He bursts into her old home, completely panic stricken. His heart might actually combust, considering how fast it's beating. It changes its pace, however, when he hears her shout his name.

It rings out, loud and strong through the house, and he's relieved. She isn't hiding. She didn't run away. She's just… here? Maybe she forgot something that she wanted to move into their house?

"Peeta!"

Her voice rips through the air, but instead of calming him, this time, it terrifies him. She sounds like she's being attacked. Something is terribly wrong. A million images race through his head, all of them of Katniss being tortured somehow. Tortured like he was. He stamps the thoughts out furiously and races up the stairs, following her voice to a closed door. She's in there. He tries to turn the knob, but it won't budge.

"Katniss!" He screams. "Katniss! What's going on! Are you okay! Who else is in there!?"

She doesn't respond.

"KATNISS!" He throws himself at the door until he hears her voice again, steadier this time.

"It's just me."

Deadly steady. Not her voice.

"You're scaring me," he tells her through the door.

"I know."

"It's okay. Just come open the door."

"I… I can't."

"Why not?"

"I just can't do it. I'm sorry. You have to break it down. I'm so sorry. Please just break it down, Peeta. Please."

More level headed now, he kicks a hole in the door with swift ease. He reaches in and turns the knob, swinging the door open. The first thing he sees is the overturned chair in front of the door. He notices the next two things almost simultaneously. A bloody knife, discarded on the floor like it was thrown there. And the hairbrush on the vanity, clumps of golden hair still stuck in the bristles. He doesn't know why he notices it. But it is distinctly Primrose Everdeen's hair. Prim's room. The knife. Katniss, huddled with her knees to her chest on the bed, blood all around her. His jaw drops.

"I'm so sorry," she mumbles, not looking up. "I don't know what happened. I just… I wasn't feeling well today, and one second I was at Sae's stand and the next second I was here, and the knife was in my boot and I was hearing voices, and then…"

She starts hyperventilating, and he goes to her, but before he can even sit on the bed, she looks at him with wild eyes and raises red hands, gesturing for him to stop. Her arms are soaked in blood, and it's still spilling from ragged cuts, one on each of her wrists. There's blood on her pants, staining her white shirt, a small stream of it dripping from an almost nonexistent puncture in between her breasts. There's a slash in her shirt, but she doesn't seem to be actually wounded on her torso. He takes an involuntary step back and she buries her face in her bloody hands. He hesitates, making sure he's safe, but he knows he won't hurt her. How did he ever want to hurt her? He sits next to her on the bloody bed, one arm around her shoulders, the other stroking her hair.

"I'm scared, Peeta. I don't want to die. I don't want to die!"

She's sobbing, and he tries to say something to get her to stop, but she cuts him off.

"I did this! I held that knife to my heart, Peeta! I was going to kill myself! Oh God! I almost killed myself!"

"No you didn't."

She bangs her head against her knees and starts shaking her head, face going white as the sheets once were.

"You didn't," he repeats. "How'd the knife get over there?"

She freezes.

"How'd it get there, Katniss?"

"I… I threw it… I think."

"Then you also saved yourself. You stopped yourself."

"I… I…"

She's stuttering and hyperventilating again, unable to reconcile this with herself. He has to get her to breathe. He has to get her out of here. He has to get her wrists stitched, or bandaged at least.

"You have to breathe, Katniss. It's okay. Just breathe. You're here. I love you. We're not going anywhere. I'm gonna love you for a lot longer."

She leans into him, crying into her hands again, smudging blood all over her face. Her wrists are still bleeding, dripping onto his clothes now.

"I cut my wrists," she tells him suddenly, as if he didn't already know.

"Don't," he says. "You don't have to tell me what happened right now. You need some time. Let's get you home and cleaned up first, okay?"

"I was going to stab myself in the chest," she goes on. "I did. I felt the knife break skin, and then I got scared. More scared than I've ever been before in my life. It was like someone else was holding the knife and I had to rip it away."

She mimics the ripping motion mechanically, explaining where the gash in her shirt came from, and then mimes throwing the knife. When she catches sight of her mangled wrists, she freezes, staring at them.

"Peeta," she gasps, like she can't believe what she's seeing.

She locks eyes with him, tears cutting paths through the blood on her face, and loses consciousness. He's almost relieved she passed out. It'll make it easier for him to get her away from this God forsaken crime scene. He was afraid she'd never leave her sister's bedroom. He scoops her up in his arms and leaves the house, leaving the blood and the knife and the mess behind. He'll clean it later.

Back at their house, he deposits her in the bathtub. He cuts her shirt off and rids her of the bloody pants, discarding both items of clothing in the trash. Then, he runs the water lightly and cleans her until almost no blood remains, but her wrists refuse to stop bleeding. He's afraid she might need stitches, but by the time he dresses her in a pair of sweatpants and one of his t-shirts, the blood flow has actually started to slow, and he settles for just applying a salve Greasy Sae gave them and wrapping her wrists in gauze. It's dark outside, but he won't sleep until she wakes up.

Instead, he cries while she can't hear him. Cries for how terrified he is that he'll lose her. Cries for how guilty he feels for not noticing how off she's been. Or for noticing it an choosing to ignore it. He doesn't know. He just knows he can't lose her. He tells himself he won't. She's so strong. She stopped herself before it was too late. That has to count for something. It's something, but he knows it isn't enough.


	44. Chapter 44

**AN: I've been on spring break, so I've had some time to write, and it's looking like I'll have another chapter up really soon :) Thank you for reading, following, favoriting, and reviewing!**

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She wakes up silently, gasping for air. She's not in Prim's room anymore. She's in her and Peeta's room, his sleeping form lying flush against her. She tries to steady her breathing. One in two out three in four out and it's not working. Her eyes flutter shut as she tries to force herself to calm down. She can't understand what's happening. Can't understand why she's so unwell. She's cold everywhere, like someone just dumped ice water over her head. She's shivering and her mind starts to whir again and she just wants to shut it off. She doesn't want to let the voices back in. Her hands form fists and pain shoots up her arms. She starts rolling her wrists subconsciously, accidentally on purpose opening up the gashes she made there. No…

"Peeta!" she shouts, and he's up in an instant. Before she can draw another breath he's straddling her waist. Hands on her face, eyes searching hers under a furrowed brow.

"You're okay," he says, climbing off of her. "Bad dream?"

"No… I… we have to call Dr. Aurelius, Peeta. Something scary is happening to me and I'm not safe here. I think I need to go see him."

"Katniss," he sighs. "Don't jump to conclusions. You had a bad day. You just need to take your medicine. You're fine. You stopped yourself before… before it got too far."

She's shaking her head because he doesn't get it. Doesn't get how much she's hurting right now and how much it's scaring her. She woke him up because it was an emergency. Not just because she wanted to chat. How can he not see that? How can he not know that she would have stabbed herself through the heart if he hand't come to find her.

"It was you," she tells him suddenly. "I… I would have done it if I didn't hear your voice. That's why I threw the knife. Not because I was being strong. Because you came and found me. You saved me. I didn't save myself."

"I didn't take that knife from you, Katniss."

"It doesn't matter. I'm not okay. I know you want me to be. I want to be. This is serious, Peeta, do you get that?"

He nods, apologizes, and hands her the phone. She stutters, staring at the object in her hand.

"W..what… now? It's the middle of the night. I… I can't just…"

"Like you said. It's an emergency. Call."

She reaches for the paper in her nightstand with his phone number written on it and starts to punch it in. Mid-dial, Peeta catches her hand in his.

"I want you to know that I'll support you whatever you decide. Whatever you want to do about this, I'll be there with you. I want you to get better. I thought you were. And I'm so incredibly sorry that I didn't see that you were suffering. I chose not to see it, Katniss. I feel horrible, and I want you to know I'm sorry that I failed you."

She drops the phone.

"Don't say that. You didn't fail me. You didn't miss anything I wanted you to see. It's not your job to protect me."

"But that's what we do, right? Protect each other?"

She hesitates and he smiles, a ghost of a thing that barely tugs at his lips, but she knows he's remembering correctly, so she nods and hits the call button.

To her great surprise, the doctor picks up his phone.

"Dr. Aurelius," he says in a calm voice, like he gets calls in the middle of the night al the time. She supposes it's part of his job.

"Um… hi? It's Katniss. Katniss Everdeen."

"Miss Everdeen! Lovely to hear from you. I must admit I'm a little shocked. How are you?"

"Not good."

His voice is much graver when he asks if anything happened.

"Yes, actually. That's why I'm calling. It's kind of an emergency."

"Well, I can't say I'm surprised to hear that, although I am sorry. I expected some setbacks with the discontinuation of you medication."

"You expected this to happen?"

She can't hide the rage in her voice.

"I'd hate to jump to any conclusions, Miss Everdeen. Why don't you tell me what happened, and we can take it from there."

She glances at Peeta, who gives her an encouraging nod.

"Okay… um… a few hours ago…"

She has to stop. She breathes one in two out three in four out and it works. Peeta doesn't touch her. He knows she wants to do this on her own. Dr. Aurelius doesn't prompt her. He knows better.

"A few hours ago, I tried to kill myself. Again."

She knows he's not ignorant to her previous suicide attempts, even though she was refusing his treatment at the time.

"I see," he says. "A few hours ago? May I ask why you've waited so long to place this call?"

"I wasn't in my house. I was in my old house. Not my old old house. The old one in Victor's Village. I don't know why I did it, but I was in my sister's room all of a sudden and I had a knife in my boot and I didn't have your number on hand and… and there were voices in my head and I was seeing ghosts and I just couldn't think straight. I can't even explain it properly. I don't know what happened. Peeta stopped me after I'd slit my wrists and he brought me home. I think I passed out. When I woke up, I rolled my wrists and the cuts opened… and I didn't want to stop. I wanted it to hurt."

"That is certainly troubling. Obviously, I'd like to recommend that you come to the Capitol so that I could monitor your behavior more closely, but seeing as you're forbidden from leaving your district, I don't think that's a possibility. I also don't believe I'd be able to do much for you other than prescribe pills."

She'd forgotten that she was confined to 12. Where else would she want to go?

"That being said, I don't believe that you should fear for your life, Miss Everdeen."

"What…. why? Is no one hearing me? I tried to kill myself!"

"But you didn't come close, now did you? You've come much closer in the past. And you've never tried to stop yourself. Never sought help. Never mind the fact that you've been off your medication. This isn't to say that this kind of behavior is normal or safe, but I do think it can be resolved rather simply. I can certainly suggest some strategies to help you protect yourself against the kinds of urges you've described. Exercises like these have been proven to work in many cases."

She groans audibly into the phone, put off by his therapist talk and stupid psychological coping methods.

"No? Then I'd have to insist you take your medication regularly again, maybe even in a higher dosage."

"No!"

"Well then you'll need to pay very close attention to me right now."

She hesitates, but when Peeta implores her to listen to the doctor, she does as he says.

"Fine. I'm listening."

"Good. First, I want you to memorize this phone number, as well as your own home number. Drill them into your head, along with the numbers of anyone else you'd be able to reach in an emergency. This way, if you're ever feel unstable and your'e away from your home, you'll still be able to call me or Mr. Mellark. I'd also like for you to memorize the rest of the steps I had you write down previously for if you ever felt the completion to hurt yourself. Carry the paper with you if you must. Don't shove it in a drawer and forget about it. Memorize it so that you won't be able to forget if you tried. Next, when you feel depressed, I'd like you to try making a mental list of every act of kindness you've seen, every good thing you've experienced. This technique is thoroughly proven in people who suffer from depression. Lastly, I'm going to be sending you a new prescription. In the past few months, we've been able to make significant medical progress given that medical professionals might now practice more freely, and a team in the Capitol has been able to modify antidepressants and the likes so that their side effects are less… numbing. I believe you can only benefit from taking these, and I will ship them to you immediately. Take them regularly, Miss Everdeen. Learn to take care of yourself, and I promise you will be alright. I know you to be uncommonly resilient."


	45. Chapter 45

**AN: Get hyped to read the longest chapter of _Medicine_ to date! Originally, I was planning on keeping all the chapters super short, but when I came back to writing this story after going on hiatus for a while, I guess it just took a turn and I felt compelled to make the chapters longer and more developed as the characters developed. Hope you're all enjoying :)**

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The box with her medication arrives on the train the next day. To their surprise, it comes with pills for Peeta too, along with a note.

_We've also been able to update Mr. Mellark's prescriptions :)_

Smiley face and all. That's what it reads. They almost laugh, not quite believing that they might finally be able to achieve a standard of normalcy.

As soon as they get home, they each take one and leave the other bottles forgotten in the bathroom. Maybe this will work. Maybe they'll be okay, and maybe it'll stick.

They take the day off work, but they're both too restless to enjoy it. He bakes too much bread, sweating his ass off in the sweltering kitchen and wishing fall would come sooner rather than later. She paces the kitchen, unwilling to leave him alone with the heat of the oven. If he's being honest, it's making him nervous. There's still something off with her. He can sense it, rising in waves that mix with the heat in the air. He opens a window above the sink and gasps in the fresh air. Seconds later, a surly voice breaks the silence in their house.

"You better bring me some of whatever I smell in there, boy!" Haymitch shouts from his yard. He's attempting to coral his geese into a poorly constructed pen. Buttercup is at his feet hissing at the geese, who seem uninterested in the cat. Peeta almost laughs as he walks out the door and over to Haymitch's, Katniss on his heels like a lost puppy. He hates seeing her like this.

"That pen looks like shit, Haymitch," he says.

"Then make me a better one," the older man replies, taking a hearty swig from a bottle of white liquor.

"Too hot," Peeta replies.

"Heat'll break soon," Haymitch slurs.

He catches Katniss contribute a little nod out of the corner of his eye and absentmindedly wonders how they know. He starts sweating again, uncomfortable in the heat and no longer interested in conversation with Haymitch. He doesn't even know why he came out here in the first place. Maybe to escape Katniss's cloud of gloom.

"I'll bring something by tonight," Peeta says, and retreats back into the house with long strides.

Katniss chases him in, catching the door he didn't hold for her. He knows he shouldn't be treating her this way, but he doesn't know what else to do. She doesn't want to be coddled, and it's too hot for physical affection anyway. She obviously doesn't want to be alone, and he's just as anxious to let her out of his site. They haven't really talked much more about yesterday's events, and he won't break the barrier unless she brings it up first. But it's driving him crazy.

His chest has been tight all day and his mind is getting hazier by the minute, like his head is filling with smoke. He's been strung so tightly that his limbs hurt with the effort of holding himself together. He thinks maybe he'll go paint something, or bake a cake, or some cheese buns for Katniss. He goes to scrape together another ball of dough, but when he reaches for the flour he sees spots and has to close his eyes. Maybe it's heat stroke, he tells himself, but he knows that's not it. There's no mistaking the feeling of poison running through your veins. He tries to push it down for the millionth time, but it's winning, almost bringing him to his knees. He grabs on to the back of one of the chairs at the counter and squeezes his eyes shut, tamping down the venom with mind.

He'd almost forgotten about Katniss completely when he feels her wrap her arms around his waist and her head come to rest on his shoulder blade. She starts humming to him, a song he vaguely recognizes for some reason, as he clings to the chair for God knows how long. When his grip finally loosens under white knuckles, he realizes it's because she's been running her hands from his shoulders to his wrists, relaxing his muscles with her touch.

"Don't go away," she tells him when he's seated in the chair, forehead resting on the semi-cool counter.

"I was following you," he says without thinking. He tries to backpedal, but she waves him away.

"Wanna go for a walk?" She asks him.

"Katniss, it's too hot," he protests.

"It's hot sitting in the house, too. We'll go somewhere cool."

She grabs the sack she usually uses for gathering and unceremoniously throws one of the fresh loaves of bread in. He follows her lead because he'll be damned if he stifles her motivation to do anything besides pace the house aimlessly, contemplating death.

A few hours later, they're dripping with sweat and panting to catch their breaths, but she's come alive a little more the further they got into the forest. She braided her hair back out of her face and grabbed her bow, out of habit, he suspects, because she didn't raise it once, but he's comforted by the fact that she looks more like the girl she was before Prim was reaped than she has since the cold winter months when they returned to 12. She's brought him to the lake house where he found her, burning with fever despite the cold, all those months ago.

"My father used to bring me here," she explains, her voice starting to regain some of its subtle passionate undertones. "After he died, I didn't come here much. I never even…"

She trails off, but he wants her to keep telling the story.

"Never even what, Katniss?" He asks gently.

"Never even showed Gale. Well, that's not entirely true. We meet up here once, right after the Victory Tour, when I was trying to convince him that we should all run away. But I only brought him here so that we could talk in private, and we had a fight so he left a few minutes after he got here. We never actually spent any time here. I don't know why I never wanted to show it to him. I guess I've always wanted it to be just my place. Mine and my father's. Until now."

It's the first time his name has come up in… since they've been back, he thinks. They've been strictly avoiding talking about anyone they used to know, but he thinks they might finally be ready to break that silence. At least he hopes they are. He suspects it would be good to talk about the people they miss. She lost it the last time he mentioned Finnick, but she seems okay now.

"Do you miss him?" He asks, trying desperately to keep the irrational jealousy out of his voice. He just can't help it.

"Yes," she says bluntly. "Nearly every day. Like I miss Prim, or Finnick, or even Johanna. Not like I'd miss you."

She turns to stare at the lake, and he walks up behind her and gathers her into his chest, staring out at the small body of water, unable to think of anything besides the Quell. But he feels okay, too. Maybe the meds are kicking in.

"You and Johanna were close." He states.

"In our own way, I guess. We lived together for a little while in 13. I don't know if you knew that. Before I left for the Capitol, we spent a lot of time together. Training, mostly. She wanted to be there so badly. In the Capitol, I mean. Not 13. That girl had a death wish."

"Hypocrite!" Peeta exclaims, almost laughing for the second time that day. He feels himself following in Katniss's footsteps, relaxing back into the more normal version of himself.

Katniss smiles a little, most likely thinking of Johanna, but her happiness vanishes in a split second. She turns to him abruptly, clutching his shirtfront and staring into his eyes. He loses his breath.

"Do you wanna go swimming?" She asks, and this time, he actually does laugh out loud.

"What?" She asks, slightly annoyed, in typical Katniss fashion.

"That's what you wanted to ask me? You looked like you were going to propose or something."

She wrinkles her nose, and he flashes one of the smiles he now saves only for her to get her to loosen up. He's proud when it works.

"Johanna… in the Capitol, they tortured her with water and electric shocks. When we were training in 13, we had to go through this simulation that targeted our weaknesses to see how we would react. In her's, they flooded the streets and she lost it. Ended up in the hospital. That's why she wasn't in the Capitol with us. I just thought… I thought that maybe…"

"I know what they did to her, Katniss."

"Right. Right. Of course. I…"

"It's okay. I'm fine. Let's go in."

She exhales, the apologies evaporating off her tongue.

"Okay," she says. "Good."

She pulls off her boots, and he follows suit. When she strips off her clothes completely, he's wonderstruck by the sight of her naked body. He's seen her like this when they've been intimate before, but never in quite this way, with the midday light streaming through the foliage and the lake glistening behind her, and still, even among all of these beautiful things, he can't help but think that she's the most beautiful. Somewhere in his belly, a switch gets flipped on, and it's like he can practically feel the blood in his head rush to his dick. He's smiling like a crazy person now, but she's already turned around and running towards the lake, so he strips down and chases after her.

She wants to teach him how to swim, and he tries to be a good student, but all he can think about is the fact that they're naked in a lake together and his dick is hard. Her mood is brightening, and eventually she gives in to his advances, abandoning her attempts to give him swimming lessons. As soon as she wraps her legs around him, weightless in the water, he knows he's done for. He's been desperate to be with her like this ever since the night he made her come. He hasn't been satisfied with chaste kisses and hand holding. This is what he's been craving, this passion, her lips all over his face, his neck, her hands in his hair, her naked body clinging to his. He hasn't been able to feel in so long, hasn't been able to love her properly, but now it's like he can remember everything all over again. Remember why he was willing to die for her. Remember how her name on his lips kept him alive in the Capitol before he was destroyed completely. Remember wanting to be the best he could be for her. He's felt flickers of it in the past couple of weeks, brief respites from the numbness, but he doesn't think he's been this lucid since the hijacking. Now, he's alive all over. So when his erection makes contact with the skin of her ass as she slides down a fraction in his arms, he has to close his eyes with pleasure at the slightest touch. When he opens them, she's staring at him with dark eyes, and when she drags him into the cabin, he's powerless against her.

He wants to tell her to stop, just for a second, to make sure she's okay, but she's so in control of herself, of him, that he physically can't make himself interrupt her. She's waking up. She's easing him down on a quilt on the floor of this sacred space she shared with him and only him. She's kissing him again, running her hands up and down his face, his arms, his chest. And all he can do is stare into her eyes and wonder. Wonder how she's survived it all. Wonder how she's his. He registers her lips leave his, her mouth marking a trail down his abdomen, but he doesn't really understand what's happening until she's already taken his dick in her mouth.

"Katniss!" He gasps her name, shocked and so overcome with pleasure that he thinks he might combust.

"What? What! Was that not good? I can…"

He cuts her off.

"No! Of course not! You've been so amazing, but I just…"

She's touching him again, nails scraping his thighs, and he can't even think with her this close to him.

"Peeta, I want to. You know I want to. Please don't ruin this for us. Just enjoy it, okay? Can we please just enjoy something for once?"

All he can do is nod as she drops her head and picks up where she left off. He's seeing stars, in the good way, and he can hardly believe that this is working, that they might actually be able to have sex. But he's hyper aware of the sensations shooting through him, and hyper aware that this is Katniss Everdeen, the girl of his dreams, sucking him off.

"Fuck, Katniss, I'm not gonna last," he gasps.

"Good," she says, looking up and flashing a wicked grin. "We'll just have to go again."

Then she's sucking him again, and all he can do is lie there frozen, calling out her name and trying not to curse too much.

When she looks up again and tells him to touch her, something inside him snaps to attention, and his hands find purchase in her hair, gripping at the roots when he knows he can't take it anymore. She makes a noise, a breathy moan in the back of her throat, and he explodes in her mouth. He holds her in place as he rides out his orgasm, and she doesn't fight him. She milks him to completion, and when he can see straight again, she lies down next to him, pressing herself into his side and looking up at him from under his arm.

"Good?" She asks.

"Oh my God," he laughs. "I think my thirteen-year-old self would have actually died if he knew how great that would feel."

"Good," she says. "Cause I feel like now you kind of owe me."

"Hm… If I recall correctly, you just made us even."

"Well then I'll just have to pay you back some other time. Let's not keep score."

"Never thought I'd hear you say those words, Katniss Everdeen, payer of all debts."

Before she can out-wit him, he rolls on top of her and assaults her mouth with his, working his way down to her chest, and finally settling at her core. He's trying to remember what she liked last time, trying to make her feel the way she made hime feel, when she stops him with a firm push on his shoulders.

"Have sex with me," she breathes, and he doesn't have the willpower to second guess her.

He tells her to stop him if she needs, but he's already pushing into her, inch by inch, and she's digging her nails into his back and he's trying to go slow so he doesn't hurt her and he's surprised he has any self control at all.

"Just do it, Peeta," she commands, and he thinks he should have known that she'd want him to rip the bandaid right off. She knows how to handle pain.

He hesitates for a spit second, wanting to remember the moment, before he plunges into her completely. She gasps a little and he stills on top of her, wanting to be able to say that he was perfectly content being connected to her, but he's no saint. So when she relaxes around him and tells him to move, he does so almost too eagerly.

It's awkward at first, and he's nervous that maybe after all they've been through together, after all they've seen each other suffer, that they just don't fit together this way. She wants to be in control, he can tell it's something she needs in order to feel comfortable, and he wants to make her feel safe and loved, but he can also tell that she doesn't really know what to say, and it's frustrating her. When he starts kissing her again, she yields to him a little more and they find their rhythm, her legs coming up to wrap around his waist, and her body feels so perfect against his that he wonders how he ever questioned their compatibility. He refuses to let himself orgasm before she does, so when her walls finally clench around him, he comes harder than he did the first time.

"You feel okay?" He asks her. They're still lying on the floor of the cabin, watching the sun set through the windows.

"I feel great." She smiles up at him.

"Even… even after what happened yesterday? You feel better? Just like that?"

He hates to ruin the mood, but he can't let her do this. He won't be tricked into forgetting about the fact that 24 hours ago, she was holding a blade to her chest. Not even sex can make him overlook that.

"Peeta," she sighs.

"I know, and I'm sorry for bringing it up now, but you really scared me, you know."

"I know. And I'm so sorry for what happened. It scared me too. But I just… I just feel like I need to move past it. I don't think I'll ever fully recover from what happened to Prim, but I can't keep it inside anymore. I tried, but I think it might literally kill me. If it helps, I honestly don't think I'd do that again. It was just… too terrifying."

He believes her. He recognizes the fearful look in her eyes. She wants to live. She won't try to take her life again. He'll help make sure of it. He'll make sure she takes the new pills every day. He'll bake her cheese buns and rub her feet after a long day of working and love her and make sure she's happy.

"I have an idea," he says.


	46. Chapter 46

When he first suggests that they have a burial for Prim, she's almost offended. There's nothing to bury, she tells him, but he insists that it's purely metaphorical. That it might give her some closure if her sister had some sort of grave, somewhere for her to visit when she misses her so much it threatens to drive her to insanity. When she realizes that she's been harboring anger over the fact that she never got to give her sister a proper goodbye, she feels guilty that she didn't think of the idea first. She was so filled with grief, so messed up both physically and mentally when Prim died, that she didn't even consider trying to give her sister any kind of sendoff. So she agrees wholeheartedly.

The sun is setting rapidly now, but she and Peeta manage to dress and dig up some Primroses before the light disappears completely. In the growing darkness, they plant the flowers next to the cabin, and Katniss carves her sister's name into the wood above them with the tip of one of her arrows. She's stopped the knife in her boot. She's safer without it.

"Would you like to say anything?" Peeta asks her as they stand in the darkness, staring down at their handiwork.

It's not enough, she thinks, but it'll have to do for now. Maybe she can add something next time they come back. She hopes Prim doesn't begrudge her for the simple burial. She knows her sister would never hold it against her. She should say something, say goodbye to her sister. It's what she wants to do. But the words won't come.

"It's okay, Katniss. Another time. Let's get inside, you're shivering."

She realizes she's crying silently, but she has to say something. Closure, she reminds herself. You're not alone, she thinks. Be happy, she repeats.

"Can you say something?" She asks Peeta.

"S…sure," he tells her, but he hesitates, unsure of himself.

"You knew her, Peeta. You guys liked each other. She was always on your side, you know. Even when I wasn't. I think she knew I'd fallen in love with you way before I did. She wanted us to have a happy ending, more than almost anything. She'd be glad, if she could see us now, I think. And she helped with your treatment a lot in the Capitol. More than I ever did. Do you remember? Try to remember."

He opens up a little. Slips back into the skin of the boy he was before he was tortured. Finds his words. She's thankful for his progress. When he first came back to 12, he could hardly form a sentence without stuttering, or getting angry, or forgetting what he was trying to say.

"Yeah… of course I remember Prim. Who could forget her? I remember how excited she would get when you let her look at the cakes in the bakery window. Sometimes when I was decorating them, I'd do the designs specifically with her in mind. There wasn't much that could drag my attention away from you, there still isn't, but seeing her smile through the window was almost enough to get me to take my eyes off of you. And I remember getting to know her a little better after the first Games. God, she'd grown up so much. And she was so passionate. She put a lot of love into everything she did. Helping your mother with patients. Milking her goat. Playing with Buttercup. But she loved you more than anything. And she was kind. Unreasonably so. She genuinely cared. Even in 13, even during the times when all I can remember are white walls and straps all across my body, I know that she wasn't just helping me because you're her sister and she felt like she owed me something. She was doing it because she sincerely wanted me to get better, for no other reason than she knew that I was hurting. I do remember that time, vaguely. I remember you, hostile and sullen and hating me. And I remember hating you. I remember Delly, goodnatured as always, trying to help me, but more scared and timid than she ever was around me. So I didn't really trust her. But Prim wasn't afraid of me or angry at me, even though she could have been both of those things, justifiably so. She wasn't really afraid of anything. She would have been an amazing doctor, and it's such a shame that we'll never see what she was truly capable of. More than a shame. A tragedy. She wanted to be out there, fighting with her sister. She was so proud of you, Katniss. I could tell by the way she talked about you that she loved being able to say that she was your sister. You must feel lucky to have been on the receiving end of that kind of love. And I feel lucky just to have known her."

His eulogy brings her to her knees in front of the makeshift grave, and she feels her delayed goodbyes pour out of her like the water of a river that's just broken through a dam. Maybe she can't say goodbye to her sister directly, but surely she can respond to Peeta.

"I do. I do feel lucky to have been loved by her. So overwhelmingly lucky. And I loved her. I loved her more than anything. I would have done anything for her, but… but…"

She's starting to get choked up, starting to think about the fact that what she did wasn't enough. She might have saved Prim from the reaping, but she couldn't save her sister's life a second time. She's starting to think it was all for nothing, all of it, everything, because Prim died anyway, but she forces herself to stop thinking that way. She has to be strong. She has to say goodbye to her baby sister. She forces herself back into a standing position with some effort.

"But she was so strong, and eventually, she didn't need me. She was the best of us. Of me and my mother and my father. Of all of us in Panem, I think. I could see it in 13. She was smart like my father and gentle like my mother and not as stupidly headstrong as I am, but brave and defiant in her own, better way. Passionate and compassionate. Wise beyond her years. And Prim, for a long time, you were the only person in this world who I was sure I loved. I thought I wasn't capable of love, and that you were the exception, but as long as I had you, I could keep going. I didn't think I'd be able to live without you, but now I have to try. I'm going to try. I'm going to make you proud. I love you forever, little duck. Goodbye."

She feels weightless, and realizes it's because she's leaning heavily into Peeta's chest. But it's also something else. The thing that's been eating away at her for so long removes its teeth, if only a little bit. But she feels it anyway.

"That was perfect, Katniss," he says.

"No, you were perfect. How do you even come up with this stuff?"

He shrugs.

"You've always been so good with words. I swear I wouldn't have survived the cameras without you. That's what scared me the most about you when we first got back to 12. It was like you didn't even want to try to communicate, and it was so out of character. But seeing you be able to paint and bake and speak like that again… it makes me happy. You make me happy."

When he tries to kiss her, tries to drag her back inside, she stops him.

"No, wait. I want to thank you for what you said about Prim. It was your idea in the first place. And I want to thank you for sticking by me yesterday. I know it was selfish…"

"Katniss, you don't need to thank me. You and me, we're in this together. Right?"

"Right, but I spent so long trying to ignore you, treating you like dirt when you deserved so much better, that I just need to let you know that you meant a lot more to me than I ever let on. Especially back then, but now too. Seeing you recovering from what happened when everyone said it was pretty much impossible, it helps keep me going. I want you to know that what you're going through isn't unnoticed. Not by me."

The lightness inside of her expands, and she can tell she's stunned him a little. His mouth hangs open for a beat before he responds.

"Really, Katniss, it's okay. I'd hate to think that you still feel guilty for things you might have done to me in the past. God knows I've hurt you, too. Don't say it's different. It's not to me. And I don't want you to worry about me, either. I know we've both been through a lot, but I'm doing fine. I'm doing better than fine, actually. Getting some of my memories back, being able to give back to the district, having you… it's more than I could have hoped for. I think you give me too much credit, actually."

"Impossible. Sometimes… sometimes when you're having a bad day, or when I can tell you're trying not to have flashbacks, I can't help but think what it was like when I got stung in the first arena. I remember having nightmares, these horrible hallucinations that I couldn't wake up from. Every time I thought it was over, I just fell back into that dream world and saw something more terrible. Saw the things that scared me most in vivid detail. And for a while, I couldn't convince myself that it wasn't real. I couldn't wake up. It was one of the most gut wrenching things I've ever experienced. And it only lasted a couple of days… I just can't imagine… Never mind…. I don't mean to dredge things up."

"No, Katniss, it's okay. It's good to talk about this stuff. It feels wrong to ignore it. That's it, though. That's pretty much exactly what it was like, for a while. For a long time, I couldn't wake up. Like you said. Then I did, for a while in 13, and when I was with you in the Capitol. I was half there, having moments when I felt like myself, but I wasn't totally in control. And when I came back here, God, I just didn't know what to do with myself. After the firebombs, I don't think I got the treatment I needed. I saw Dr. Aurelis a few times, and I was getting better, but he was really busy after the war, and they couldn't keep me in the Capitol, and I had nowhere else to go, so I came home and just… relapsed. We weren't speaking, and everything around me just felt so… wrong. I felt wrong. I was so lost. I was more coherent than I had been, but I was still having flashbacks everyday, and I didn't know what to do to get them to stop. So I just let it happen. And as long as we're having this conversation, I want you to know that I'm sorry as well. I'm sorry for not trying to make things okay between us sooner. I'm sorry for how I acted when you started trying to get close to me. I'm sorry I still act that way sometimes. I'm trying to get back to the way I know I used to be, but a lot of the time it feels impossible."

"It's okay, Peeta. Let's not be sorry anymore, okay? I love you."

"Love you, too."

They're both quite for a while, just standing in the darkness, staring at the Primroses. And then Peeta, with the humorous tone she used to associate so closely with him, says, "So… should we take off our clothes again?"

She laughs, a real belly laugh, knowing that he's only half kidding.


	47. Chapter 47

**AN: Hello my lovely readers! So sorry for the long wait for this chapter, but I'm home from school for the summer so I can promise much more frequent updates once again. We're nearing the end, but I have plenty of other projects in the works! Feedback is always appreciated, and I apologize for any mistakes. I was sort of tired when I proofread this chapter :)**

* * *

They spend the night in the cabin in the woods, lying close together in a pile of quilts to keep warm. Regrettably, they don't get naked again. The next morning, they take their time walking home, munching on a loaf of bread Peeta baked yesterday, trying not to feel guilty about being conspicuously absent from work two days in a row. He knows there's no schedule, but he also knows they both inexplicably feel as if they owe their district something that they'll never be able to pay back. Hopefully they'll be more consistent now that they're not battling with medications anymore.

When they finally make it home, Haymitch is passed out at their kitchen table.

"Some things never change," Peeta says.

In response, Katniss fills a mixing bowl with cold tap water and dumps it on their mentor's head. Haymitch wakes up swinging his knife, as always, but she's already retreated back to Peeta's side, tucked safely under his arm.

"Why are you in our house, Haymitch?"

"You two finally had sex, then?"

Shit. Katniss sputters and steps away from him, and he immediately misses the feel of her shoulders under his arm, he body radiating warmth next to his. He goes to open his mouth, try to cover for them to lessen Katniss's embarrassment, but Haymitch stops him.

"Please, boy, look at yourself. You're smiling, you know. You're actually beaming. It's pathetic. I know that look. Don't worry, kids, I won't tell Effie."

"You still talk to Effie?" Katniss questions immediately as Peeta tries and fails to look a little less pleased.

Haymitch pauses, but eventually volleys back with a "mind your own business."

"What!? You're the one in _our_ home!"

"I'll get out of your hair. I just came for the bread I was promised, but I see you two have been engaged with other pressing business."

He scoops up a few loaves off of the table and retreats out the door. As soon as he's gone, Katniss turns to Peeta.

"Haymitch and Effie?" She raises her eyebrows.

"Appears so," he replies.

She shakes her head and yawns.

"You still tired?" he asks.

She nods, stifling another yawn, and he suggests she take a nap. She consents and crashes on the couch.

"Nap with me?" She asks.

"I think I'm gonna make some fresh stuff for the crews, actually…" he trails off. She's already asleep.

He smiles to himself and pulls out the ingredients for cupcakes, quickly losing himself in his work. He's halfway through icing them with different designs when her screaming starts.

He curses once, slams his fist on the table. He's just frustrated. Frustrated that even after a relaxing, stress free day at the lake, she can't catch a break. Will they ever be able to go more than a few days without nightmares?

He crosses to her and says her name, not bothering to whisper. When he reaches down to stroke her hair, she lashes out, so he's forced to pin down her wrists. She fights him, legs kicking and chest straining with her attempts to break his grip, but he's stronger. He manages to maneuver her into his lap, still gripping her wrists, which he positions around his neck. When her arms embrace him, she stills instantly, catching her breath. She groans into his neck.

"You okay?" He asks.

"I just… I don't know if I could spend the rest of my life this way, Peeta. I can't stand seeing blood every time I close my eyes."

Honestly, she's echoing his thoughts from just seconds ago, but he makes himself speak before he has too much time to think.

"Katniss, don't say that. This won't last forever. It's already getting better, right?"

"Is it?"

"Of course. Remember when we first got home? I do. I couldn't sleep for an hour without waking up terrorized and half insane. Now I can sleep full nights. There were no good days at all, not at first. I thought I was going to die in this house alone, and I thought I deserved it. We couldn't even stand to see each other. I wasn't myself, and neither were you. I spent my days just waiting for the next flashback, and so unbelievably bitter, and you spent yours trying to off yourself with pills. Look at us now. Working, living together, having sex! God knows I _never_ thought I'd be so lucky as to achieve that. We're functioning, Katniss, okay? So cut yourself some slack. You're still healing. We're still healing. You're not alone, so don't worry about having to do this all by yourself. And that's okay. It's different now. We're different. It's been what? Six months since we got home? Where were we a year ago? In an arena?"

He stops short.

"It's been almost a year, hasn't it?" She asks.

"Yeah, I guess it has been."

Her stare goes a little more blank and he notices her fingers dancing across the fresh scar on her wrist.

"Katniss, come on. It's okay. I was just saying that we've made a lot of progress. We shouldn't even be here. We should be dead 100 times over. But we protected each other. That's what we do. And we're going to keep doing it."

"I don't want to have to keep protecting each other, Peeta."

"I know. And maybe one day we won't need protecting. But for now…"

She's running her nails along the inside of her arm, tracing the skin grafts, circling the lumpy scar Johanna's knife left, coming dangerously close to the one her own knife made. He grabs her hands instinctively, and she looks up at him in a panic.

"Make the list," he says.

"What?"

"Make the list. Like Dr. Aurelius said."

"I… I don't know. I can't."

"Yes you can. Come on. Tell me. Tell me about the good things you've seen in your life."

That's when it starts to flow.

"Prim tying ribbons around Lady's neck. Your dad giving me cookies. Rue laughing. Mags teaching me how to make a fish hook. Finnick tying knots. Finnick carrying Mags. Finnick counting bread. Finnick seeing Annie for the first time when you guys were rescued. Finnick and Annie's wedding."

"You dreamed about Finnick?" He asks.

She nods.

"You miss him a lot."

Another nod.

"Would it help if we put him in the book?"

Nod.

They work in silence until she speaks up.

"You know there was never anything romantic between Finnick and I, right?"

He actually laughs.

"Katniss, why would you even say something like that? Of course I know. I know what you guys were to each other. And I'm glad you had someone who knew what you were going through in 13. I owe Finnick my life, and probably yours too. And, I mean, I did know him a little. Maybe not as well as you did, but I knew him enough to know never to doubt him and Annie. No one in their right mind could."

"Okay. I know. I just wanted to be sure you knew it wasn't anything romantic. But he was important to me. As a friend. Like Gale used to be. Gale actually did think… he thought there was something more between Finnick and I. We fought about it. So I just wanted to make sure."

"Well, Gale didn't really know Finnick. I did."

She nods again and they lapse back into silence. They work diligently, and soon enough he's drawn an image of Finnick laughing in the sand during the Quarter Quell and she's written enough about his life to fill several pages. Once they've sealed the pages, he asks if she feels better.

"Yeah, but I still miss him. I miss everyone. I miss having people around, you know? Not that what we have isn't good enough, but I miss… friends. What happened to our friends?"

"Besides death?"

"Besides death."

"We could write to them."

"Who would we write to?"

"Annie. Or Johanna. I think I have a letter from Delly somewhere. And if you ever decide that you want to reach out to Gale… I wouldn't… you know… I wouldn't mind."

"I don't know, Peeta."

"No, you were right. It feels weird to be so out of touch after everything that happened."

"Okay. So we write. What do you think? Delly first? Start easy?"

He takes a second to read her. She's less composed than usual, and he's not yet used to this slightly rattled Katinss, but he decides it's okay to just go with it, so he goes to their room and digs through some drawers until he comes up with Delly's unopened letter.

"You haven't read it?" She asks when he comes back downstairs. "Why?"

"I honestly don't know. She wrote it a while back, almost as soon as the trains started running again. I couldn't bring myself to open it then, and I guess I pushed it to the back of my mind and just never got around to it."

"You do want to write her though, right?"

He tears the envelope open in response. It's good to hear from her, actually. After all, it is Delly. The letter, although rather long and reminiscent of her ability to talk (and apparently write) for hours, is friendly and bubbly. She's in District 11, or she was when she wrote to him. Probably literally frolicking in the fields. She has a boyfriend. Her brother is traveling, but they keep in touch. She misses her parents. She misses 12. When he writes back to her, Katniss reading over his shoulder, he invites her to visit. They get a letter back a week later in which she informs them she's moving back to 12 after a bad breakup with the previously mentioned boyfriend. Peeta's excited. Katniss seems more apprehensive, but he chalks it up to her antisocial tendencies. The night they get the letter back, they make love several times, at Katniss's insistence. She falls asleep clinging to him tighter than usual.


End file.
